Loop
by Sanguine Ink
Summary: "He was the champion – no the lord – of foolhardy plans, whipped together at the last second with barely a prayer of working. But this…this took the cake. It was all up to Jack now." Ten, Rose, and Jack in a spot of trouble, several times over.
1. Chapter 1: The Madness Begins

**A/N: This is another one of my little daydreams that exploded into an actual plot, complete with angst, TenRose romance, and whump. Oh the glorious whump.  
**

**This story fits in with my Doomsday AU series, but stands on its own as well. If you'd like to read those, the first one is Two Months, the second is The Planted Past.**

**Now with all that said...please enjoy. :)**

* * *

Chapter One: The Madness Begins

The Doctor's fingers trembled as they worked, slick with blood and sweat. He wiped a hand off on his trousers, careful to keep his eyes on his work. If _they_ thought he wasn't working, Rose's screams would be echoing in his ears faster than he could say "stop."

But he could save her, he reminded himself. He could still save her if he concentrated and performed a miracle. And a miracle it would be, because he wasn't even sure it was possible. In fact, it probably wasn't. Might not even work at all.

He could sense every slow second passing, every one of Rose's fearful breaths, and mentally kicked himself again. It wasn't the first time she'd been threatened to get him to do something, and if they ever managed to escape – and they _would_, he thought firmly – it wouldn't be the last. Why did he keep dragging her into these kinds of things?

They'd hurt him when he'd refused to do as they asked, and when that didn't work, they'd brought Rose in. He remembered how her eyes had widened when she'd realized what they were asking him to do, how she'd told him, _begged_ him not to do it. Instead, he'd looked her in the eye, bowed his head, and told the aliens pressing the guns to her temple that he would do it.

Fortunately for him, he was clever. Oh, he looked very busy – he _was _busy working, but he wasn't exactly working on what their captors wanted.

Their leader was pacing behind him, and though the Doctor did not turn to look he could feel the impatience growing in each step. _They_ wouldn't wait much longer. He gritted his teeth against the pain and snatched the last two wires.

He managed to hook them together without screaming. Daring to turn his head ever so slightly, he caught the tiniest glimpse of the alien pacing behind him. It was watching him with its beady little eyes like a snake surveying a rat, but it didn't seem to realize what he'd done.

Keeping his face focused in a look of intense concentration, the Doctor's hand found the lever he'd tucked just out of sight behind some wiring. He could feel the impossible power thrumming under his fingers. This was it, he realized, his mouth pulling into an even grimmer line. He hesitated a moment, hand clutching the lever so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He was the champion – no the _lord_ – of foolhardy plans, whipped together at the last second with barely a prayer of working. But this…this took the cake.

It was all up to Jack now.

The Doctor took a deep breath and yanked the lever down.

* * *

Somewhere in the Mita galaxy, between the twin planets Sliya and Joll and just past the Drexel Nebula, a star was dying. Tendrils of gold and bright magenta bubbled and swirled, branching from a blinding white center, a network of color and energy. Flecks of electric blue burst from the center like millions of fireflies released from a jar. At the heart of the star, a crushing pressure built, ready to expel heat and light and sheer force in the star's final breath.

A nearby but safe distance away, a small blue box hovered in space, door ajar to reveal three people peering at the display in awe.

"It's beautiful," breathed Rose, squeezing the Doctor's hand. She sat next to him on the TARDIS threshold, legs dangling outside into the emptiness of space.

"Nearly as gorgeous as you," Jack added, leaning on their shoulders with his elbows.

"Thought you'd like it," the Doctor beamed. "This star's got a lot of interesting elements in it, makes the explosion rather brilliant…" He eased his legs back inside the TARDIS, and held out a hand to help Rose up. "But we'll have to close the door soon, or a massive shockwave's going to hit us in about, oh….thirty-one point two seconds."

"Oh, not cutting it close at all then," Jack said, standing and reaching to close the door.

"Nah," scoffed the Doctor, bounding back to the console and pushing buttons seemingly at random. "Plenty of time!" The TARDIS screeched as it entered the vortex.

Rose plopped onto the captain's chair. "So where we off to now?"

"Anywhere and everywhere," answered the Doctor, leaning against the console. "Suggestions? Anyone?"

"Phroditamite," proposed Jack quickly, settling next to Rose on the chair.

The Doctor's nose wrinkled. "Nonononono. Bad idea. Absolutely not."

"Oh, c'mon! Rose'll love it."

"What's Phrodita-whats-it?"

"Biggest nightclub in the universe," Jack explained, closing his eyes in relish.

"The high amount of cloud cover keeps most of the sunlight from reaching the inhabitants," babbled the Doctor, twisting some levers. "Keeps most of the warmth out, too."

"So the Phroditamines started a planet-wide dance party to warm themselves up," continued Jack.

"Why not go, then?" asked Rose warily. "What's the catch?"

"No catch," Jack insisted.

Rose raised an eyebrow and looked to the Doctor.

"They play only Fiery Vertebrae," he said darkly.

"I _like_ Fiery Vertebrae!" Jack shot back. The Doctor shuddered.

Rose smiled, brow scrunching in confusion. "Who are they, then?"

"Fifty-first century band," the Doctor reeled off. "Studied lyric writing under a master Vogon poet. Highly argued to be the worst music in the universe." He reached out for Rose melodramatically. "_Come, my dream, let's dance 'til our sides burst at the seams. Your uvula delights me, your eyes, they entice me_ – "

"They've got great beats!" Jack protested over Rose's howling laughter. "And if you hate them so much, why do you have their songs memorized?"

"I know everything," the Doctor replied smugly, "_Well_, almost everything. _Well,_ almost almost everything – "

A ringing alert sounded from the console, and the Doctor rushed over to inspect the screen. "Distress signal," he announced.

"Where?" gasped Rose, still fighting the urge to laugh.

"Warren Delta Three." The Doctor frowned at the screen.

"Oh, I've been there," Jack recalled. "Great restaurants. They have amazing noodles."

"I'll get you some after we've saved the planet," the Doctor promised as he dashed around the console. "Rose, that button there – Jack, that one – "

They all tumbled to the floor as the TARDIS landed.

The Doctor, as usual, was the first one up. "Come on, come on!" He helped both his friends to their feet and shooed them towards the door, shrugging on his overcoat on the way out.

"Wouldn't want to keep the mortal danger waiting," Rose added, and all three of them opened the TARDIS door and strode out into whatever trouble awaited them.

* * *

"Are you sure the distress signal came from somewhere in this restaurant?" Rose asked.

"Absolutely positive." The Doctor frowned at his sonic screwdriver, shaking it vigorously.

"Only it doesn't look like anyone's in, you know…distress."

Jack yawned in agreement. They'd spent the better part of an hour traipsing through the town the TARDIS had landed in, following the distress signal past sunset. At last they'd managed to track the signal to this small but inviting restaurant. It had a vague sort of Earth Asian feel – warm orange lanterns dangled from the ceiling, and thick candles adorned each simple wooden table. The restaurant was only half-full; the rotund, almost panda-like Warrenites and the occasional offworlder chattered away as they twirled long fuchsia noodles around a notched stick.

No one looked to be in any state of alarm, distress, or danger whatsoever.

"Excuse me," the Doctor said loudly, attracting the attention of nearby tables. "I'm the Doctor – hello – and this is Rose and Jack. Is anyone here in trouble? In danger of being eaten or anything?" He glanced at the food in alarm. "Those noodles aren't sentient or anything, are they?"

"Doctor!" A particularly pudgy Warrenite waddled over to them, a tray of plates in his paws. "Back already?"

"Back?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Er, yes. What was your name again?"

"Urzen," the Warrenite replied, setting the tray down on a nearby table. "You saved my restaurant this morning, and I thank you for it!"

"Oh, right. Of course." The Doctor stuck the screwdriver back in his pocket. "Of course I did."

"Sit, sit!" Urzen waved them towards an empty table. "You and your friends left before I could thank you properly. Dinner's on me!"

"Ah, you're welcome. I mean, thank you." The Doctor shrugged at both Rose and Jack, both of whom were trying not to laugh.

"Sit, sit!" Urzen repeated, pushing them into their chairs. "I'll bring you noodles straight away!" He scurried as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him towards the kitchen.

Jack lounged back in his chair. "He seems pretty grateful. What did you save his restaurant from?"

"I don't know," the Doctor grinned widely. "I haven't, yet. Wibbly-wobbly…"

"Timey-wimey," Rose and Jack both finished in unison.

Urzen returned, plopping hot plates of fuchsia noodles in front of them. "Enjoy!"

As their host returned to the kitchen, the Doctor poked at his noodles. Having determined they were not sentient after all, he began eating them with abandon. Sauce dribbled down his chin.

"I still can't believe you don't like Fiery Vertebrae," Jack complained between mouthfuls of noodles. "Have you no heart?"

"Two, in case you hadn't noticed," he replied flippantly, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve.

"What's music like, then, in the fifty-first century?" Rose asked, struggling to get her noodles to wrap around what she was beginning to think of as a single chopstick.

The Doctor slurped a noodle. "Remember that concert I took you to? Where they smashed the blenders?"

"And the lightning show?"

"That's the one. That was Kelvin Kalrezek. Best musician of the 50th century. Started the entire pop-breaking-glass revolution, which carried on into the fifty-first."

"Oh, I liked him," Rose remembered.

The Doctor sniffed. "You would."

"Kelvin Kalrezek," Jack recalled with a grin, "Also had the best hair of the 50th century. And those _eyes_…"

Rose rolled her eyes, smiled, and leaned towards the Doctor. "I like you better."

The Doctor adjusted his tie and cleared his throat. "Yes, well…quite right too."

Still smiling, Rose slurped a noodle. "You didn't even tell Jack why we were there."

"Oh, yeah!" The Doctor beamed. "So a couple rogue Audotrells were trying to use the sound system to transmit a homing signal to their mothership…"

The amount of noodles on their plates dwindled as the story continued, growing funnier with every word.

"And then Kelvin, he said…" the Doctor continued, barely suppressing his laughter enough to speak. "He said, 'Whot's that on your head, mate?' And Rose – "

Jack laughed harder as Rose choked on her drink, unable to swallow through her giggles. She wiped her dripping mouth off with her fingers. Behind her, Jack suddenly spotted a maroon, hairless humanoid at the next table, its slitted eyes watching them carefully, twisting an empty sack in its muscled hands. The laughter on Jack's face faded as he took in its reptilian snout, bony jaw, and steeply ridged eyebrows. That creature looked out of place in this restaurant full of furry, cuddly-looking people, and something about its presence here bothered him. What species was it?

The Doctor and Rose continued obliviously. "And then," the Doctor chortled, "He did the thing with the blender, and the signal – "

Suddenly the figure lurched forward, opening the bag wide and heading straight for the still-giggling Rose. Jack lunged towards her, one hand reaching for his blaster, but stopped as his vision went dark. Somebody had just pulled a wet bag over his own head. The stench of chloroform made him gag as he twisted in a vain attempt to free himself, groping for his blaster. His fingers only gripped air, an instant after his attacker – Muerton, he identified – had snatched the weapon instead. Around him, Jack could hear muffled yells and crashes – Rose's attacker had brought friends.

Trying not to inhale any more of the nauseating fumes, Jack managed to jerk his head out from under the bag. He gasped in fresh air as he watched in horror a Muerton wrenching a bag down over Rose's struggling head. Beside her, another Muerton was fumbling to bag the Doctor. It was proving to be a difficult task. The Doctor's eyes were filled with fury as his limbs landed blow after blow into the person behind him. Yet another attacker swarmed over the Doctor to help pin him down as the Time Lord yelled Rose's name repeatedly. Rose's attacker soon managed to get the bag over her head and wrap an arm around her neck. She tugged at the Muerton's arms, but her flailing was becoming more and more subdued by the second.

Jack squirmed in an attempt to help either of his friends, but the Muerton behind him pressed the soaked bag tight over his mouth and nose. Jack choked on the sweet fumes but fought even harder. One of the Doctor's attackers copied the idea, pushing the chloroform-soaked bag over the Time Lord's face. But the Doctor was having none of it. His resistance became more desperate as Rose weakened and finally stopped moving altogether.

Jack's own vision was dimming as the chloroform smothered him. His arms and legs felt as if they were stone; soon he could barely struggle at all. His vision began to blur as he watched the Doctor thrash like a wild animal, and he dimly wondered whether Time Lords were immune to chloroform. The Doctor was still yelling both Rose's and Jack's names, but Jack heard the sound as if it traveled underwater.

The Muerton attacking the Doctor must have come to the same conclusions Jack had, because it let the bag drop to the floor and punched the Doctor in the jaw. Jack gave one more ineffectual tug at his attacker's arm before his body slumped. He glimpsed another Muerton deal a blow to the Doctor's head as his vision slowly blurred to nothingness.

* * *

"Jack? Jack?"

Slowly, Jack blinked, letting the plain white room – no, _cell_ – come into focus. Rose's tear-streaked face shone over him.

"You're awake too!" she cried gratefully, throwing her arms around him. "I just woke up a minute ago."

Jack returned her hug anxiously, feeling the slightest rush of adrenaline leftover from the restaurant fight. "Where's the Doctor?"

Rose bit her lip and pointed towards the opposite corner. "Over there," she said softly, and Jack flinched.

The Doctor sat leaned against the cell wall, his head lolling unpleasantly. Dried blood was caked around his jaw, and a nasty purple bruise covered his eye. The rest of his face was either horribly pale or swollen. His suit was torn and blood-spattered.

Jack rushed over to him immediately to check he was still breathing.

"He's alive," Rose murmured, joining Jack at the Doctor's side, "First thing I did when I woke up was check his hearts. Only one's beating." She bit her lip again, surveying the broken man. "Jack, what happened? How'd he get like this? All I remember is we were in a restaurant…"

"A bunch of people attacked us," Jack remembered. "Muertons, I think. Tried to knock us out with chloroform. I'm guessing that didn't affect the Doctor, so…they must have tried to knock him out a different way."

"Oh, _Doctor_…." She carefully wrapped her fingers around the Doctor's limp hand. "But, Jack, what do they want? We haven't done anything! We didn't overthrow anybody, we haven't offended anybody – we were just eating!"

"Don't know," Jack replied grimly.

She fell silent, sitting next to the Doctor against the wall. Jack sat on his other side as Rose removed his tie and used it to wipe some of the blood and sweat off his face.

They sat like that for few minutes before the Doctor finally stirred. "R – Rose?"

"Don't try to get up," Jack ordered, pushing down on his shoulder to keep him from disobeying.

"I'm here," Rose replied soothingly, flicking some of his matted hair off his forehead.

He opened his eyes slowly and tried to sit up, then immediately grimaced and moaned.

"I said don't move," Jack snapped as the Doctor's eyes shut.

"Don't go," Rose pleaded. The Doctor's eyes opened again.

"I doubt I'm going anywhere," he said weakly. "What happened?"

"Chloroform," Jack supplied, "Doesn't work on you, does it?"

"Not really. It could if I actually breathed in enough of it, but….oh. Was I fighting then?"

"Like a rabid Chula," Jack smiled grimly.

Rose bit her lip. "Are you…okay?"

"Oh, this?" The Doctor prodded his face. "Mild concussion, fractured ribs, stopped heart, bruises and who knows what else everywhere? Oh…I'll be fine. Who took us then?"

Jack frowned. "Looked like Muertons."

"Mercenaries, then," the Doctor identified, wincing. "But who are they working for?"

"Does it matter?"

"Might help me figure out what they want…" The Doctor's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and Jack stopped pushing on his shoulders immediately.

"Doctor?" Rose ran a hand through his hair and patted his face. Still, it was a minute or so before the Doctor's eyes cracked open again.

He let out another groan. "Sorry…coma's a bad idea now anyway…" His head drooped again.

Jack shook him. "_Sleep _is a bad idea if you've got a concussion."

"Not a bad one," the Doctor whined. "I've had _far_ worse."

"Like when?" Jack demanded.

The Doctor paused. "Loads of times. I know I have. What we need…" He grunted as he managed to sit up before Jack could stop him. "Is a way out…Do you hear that?"

Jack concentrated, and heard distant footsteps approaching their door. "Muertons?" he guessed.

"They're coming to let us out?" Rose suggested as the steps came closer.

The Doctor shook his head, trying not to wince. "I doubt it."

The cell door burst open, and several Muertons stormed in, heavily armed.

"Hello," the Doctor said cheerily, "Your services are no longer required. We'll be going now. Mattress is too flat, and the in-house massage leaves something to be desired. See if I ever book this place again."

"Take the Time Lord," ordered one of them.

"No!" Rose cried, blocking the Doctor from their view.

"Don't even think about it," Jack snarled, fists clenching.

One of the Muertons paused. "Are the non-Time Lords required?"

"Orders say they are not," grunted the first Muerton. "But they are preferred."

At this, the Doctor quickly pushed himself off the ground, grimacing horribly and gasping for air. "No, no, don't hurt them, I'll come willingly."

Rose tugged on his arm. "They've got guns!" she hissed.

"And I haven't," the Doctor insisted, gently removing her hand from his arm. "Which makes me the better person, don't you think?"

Jack took Rose's arm as they reluctantly watched the Doctor, still breathing heavily from the effort required to stay upright, be led from the cell. He stumbled once, and would have crashed to the floor had a Muerton not snatched the back of his collar. The Doctor cast one more look back at Rose and Jack, and then the door slammed shut, leaving them alone.

Rose leaned her back against the wall in silence.

Jack started to pace. "They know he's a Time Lord. How do they know?"

Rose bit her lip. "They want him for something. And they're going to kill him if he doesn't tell them."

"They're not going to kill him," Jack realized. "They're going to kill _us_."

Face set, Rose felt along the wall. "Well, let's not just sit here. There's _got_ to be a way out."

They spent the next hour and a half searching every crack and prodding every section of the walls and door, but their search proved fruitless. As far as they could tell, their cell was inescapable.

"We should have taken the screwdriver," Rose groaned as Jack ran a finger along the doorframe.

"I doubt it would have worked." He rubbed his finger and thumb together, thinking. "If they know about him being a Time Lord, they probably know about the sonic. I'm betting this door's dead-locked sealed."

"And that's the part that worries me," Rose sighed. "They know about him. The Doctor must have met these people before."

"And the meeting didn't end on happy terms." Jack frowned. He moved closer to Rose and rubbed a hand over her back comfortingly, and she wrapped him in a hug. A memory of the Doctor in Torchwood, beaten and barely healing and strapped to a table, flashed in his mind, and he returned Rose's hug guiltily. He'd sworn he wasn't going to let that happen to the Doctor again, but he had no idea how to get them out of this.

"Or he hasn't met them yet," Rose realized. "But they've met him. Whatever we did that got us a free lunch…"

Jack grimaced. "Should've known. No such thing as a free lunch."

Both humans tensed as they heard stomping outside their cell. The door crashed open and several hulking Muertons poured in, heavy guns in their grasps.

"Where is he?" Rose demanded, breaking from Jack and stepping towards them. "What have you done with him?"

"Take the girl," came the order.

Jack sprung into action, moving between them and Rose. "Don't you dare," he seethed. "Take me instead."

The Muertons were on them in an instant. One of them slammed Jack in the gut while the other wrenched Rose away by the arms, kicking and screaming.

"JACK!" she shrieked, wriggling an arm free and reaching for him.

"Rose!" Clutching his stomach, Jack struggled to his feet and lunged for her, but the cell door slammed shut in his face, muffling Rose's cries.

Jack ran his hand down the door again, willing it to open. It didn't. He yelled and beat on the door so hard it trembled, but no one came and the door remained firmly shut.

Finally, he collapsed against the side of the door, mind racing. Whatever these people wanted the Doctor to tell them, he obviously hadn't. An image flashed in Jack's mind of the Doctor, bruised and broken and screaming as Rose was butchered in front of him.

Jack rubbed his hands over his face, hoping that would stimulate some brilliant escape plan. There was no way out of here. He needed a miracle…

The change was instant. One moment, Jack was in the cell, alone and defeated. The next moment, he was sitting at a table, and Rose was in front of him, laughing hysterically.

"He said, 'Whot's that on your head, mate?' And Rose – "

Jack's mouth fell open as his eyes swept over the room, taking in the clinking of glass, the glowing lanterns dangling from the restaurant's ceiling, the remnants of fuchsia noodles littering their plates.

"No freaking way."


	2. Chapter 2: Deja Vu

Chapter 2: Déjà Vu

Jack wasted three entire seconds gawking at both his friends, alive and well and laughing, before the Muerton behind Rose caught his eye.

"Doctor!" he said urgently, "Muertons!" He pointed.

"What?" the Doctor replied. Then he followed Jack's finger to the Muerton right behind Rose. He drew in a sharp breath.

"What's wrong?" asked Rose, still grinning.

Jack swung his elbow back behind him, and grunted in both satisfaction and pain as it hit flesh. His fingers wrapped around his blaster –

And dropped it immediately as something slammed him into the floor. The blaster spun and slid away from his grasp. Jack reached desperately for it, but the heavy weight digging its knees into his spine made it a struggle to breathe, much less crawl towards the blaster.

Jack twisted to try and see the Muerton on top of him, but all he glimpsed was the dirty bag it shoved onto his face. Rose's muffled shrieks and the Doctor's yelling filled Jack's ears, but he couldn't see and he couldn't move and he couldn't, shouldn't breathe –

At last, his lungs betrayed him and gulped in chloroform-flavored air, until Jack knew no more.

* * *

"Jack? Jack?"

Jack groaned and opened his eyes. Rose's face hovered over him, glistening with tears. He shut his eyes, unwilling to face her. He'd blown it. He hadn't changed anything.

"Jack, please wake up…"

He opened his eyes again, but didn't bother sitting up. "How bad is he?"

"He's alive," Rose said hopefully.

"Too bad he's only got one heart working."

Rose blinked. "You haven't even looked at him. How do you – "

"I've been through this already," Jack groaned, finally sitting up. His eyes flickered towards the beaten Doctor before looking away.

"What, like déjà vu?" she asked.

Jack shook his head. "More like a time loop. I've been trapped in one before, but that was two weeks long." He briefly remembered the Doctor staggering out of the cell with the Muertons, and he gripped Rose's arms. "We gotta get out of here. Last time they took the Doctor."

Rose's brow creased. "Who took him where?"

Jack shook his head and gave a half-shrug. "Muertons, don't know where. And a couple hours after they took him away, they came back for you."

"But – " Her eyes widened. "They wanted him to do something, didn't they?"

Jack nodded grimly.

"But you know what's gonna happen," Rose reasoned. "So we can get it right this time, yeah?."

"I already blew it. We searched, last time. There's no way out of this cell."

Rose's jaw set. "There's gotta be a way to fix it. That's why you've been given a second chance."

"Sometimes, time loops just _happen_, Rose."

She shook her head. "I don't believe that."

Jack bit back a scathing reply. Let Rose keep her hope for just a while longer. He watched as she sat at the Doctor's side, rubbing his hand and waiting anxiously for him to wake up.

Jack stared at the wall, not wanting to face either of them, until a groan consumed his attention. "R – Rose?"

Jack rushed over to his friends. The Doctor hissed as he opened his eyes and tried to stand, ribs straining to take his weight. He collapsed and fell back to where he was, gasping for breath.

"We're here," Rose assured him, squeezing his hand. "Try to rest."

"What…happened?"

"We're caught in a time loop, Doc," Jack informed him, "Or at least, I am – Rose doesn't seem to remember. Don't tell me you don't, either?"

The Doctor shook his head. "We can't be. I'd feel it, I'd know – " His head started to droop, and Jack shook him back awake.

"Well then how else do you explain that I know we've been captured by Muertons, and in a few minutes some of them are going to come back and take you?"

Gripping Rose's arm tightly, the Doctor manoeuvered himself to sit up straighter. "Take me where?"

"I don't know!" Jack shot back angrily. The Doctor looked sceptical, eyebrows raised high. Anxiety gnawed at Jack's stomach. The Doctor _had_ to believe him; it was _vital_. If not to their escape, at least to Jack's sanity. "They just took you, and then they came back for Rose, and then I was back in the restaurant!"

"I believe him," Rose said softly. "He knew about you being hurt before he'd even seen you."

The Doctor considered Jack for a moment. "_Well_," he said lightly, "Don't think I'd like to stay here either way, thanks." Gritting his teeth, he pushed off the wall, legs gradually taking his weight. Rose and Jack stood quickly to help him up.

"Right, then," the Doctor gasped. His eyes were clenched shut as if trying to hold back a scream. Slowly he drew his sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket and flicked it to the right setting. "Door." He took a step towards the door and plummeted immediately. He cried out as Jack threw out his arms to catch him.

"Careful!" Jack ordered, lowering him down to the floor.

"How – do – you – humans – _function_?" he groaned, clutching at the right side of his chest.

"With difficulty," replied Rose in exasperation. "Rest. I mean it."

The Doctor slipped the sonic screwdriver into Rose's hand. "Try it."

Rose aimed the screwdriver at the door and flicked it on. The blue light shone and buzzed, but the door remained impenetrable.

"Ah, well, worth a shot," groaned the Doctor, laying still on the floor. His eyes started to close.

Jack patted the Doctor's face until he stirred. "Come on, don't fall asleep on us now. You've got a concussion."

The Doctor cracked his eyes open. "No, I don't."

Jack let out a snort. "Yeah, you do."

"Maybe a little one…" he started to drift off again, then opened his eyes wide. "Do you hear that?"

The Muertons were returning. Gingerly the Doctor used Jack for support to slowly get to his feet. Rose wrapped an arm around his other side just as the door opened and several Muertons poured in, a vast array of weaponry in hand.

"Take the Time Lord."

"NO!" cried Rose, tightening her grip on the Doctor.

"Look, you can't have him," said Jack desperately, "He's hurt, he needs – "

"Are the non-Time Lords required?" asked one of the Muertons.

"Orders say they are not, but they are preferred."

The Doctor took in a sharp breath. "No, no, don't hurt them, I'll come willingly."

Shivers of déjà vu crept through Jack as Rose hissed, "Doctor, they've got guns."

The Doctor attempted a cheery smile and nudged her away. "And I haven't, which makes me the better person, don't you think?"

Jack wrapped an arm around Rose as they both watched the Muertons take the Doctor away. He winced as the Doctor once again stumbled, and was carried more than marched out. The slam of the door sounded just as final as it had the first time.

"Alright, we've got about an hour and a half," said Jack determinedly.

"Before what?" Rose whispered, still staring at the door.

"Before they come back for you."

Rose nodded. "If the screwdriver doesn't work on the door, maybe it'll work on the wall, yeah?"

They ran the screwdriver over every centimetre of the wall. They'd even tried picking at the wall with their fingernails, trying to make a dent, but an hour and a half's work had produced only a shallow dent scarcely noticeable to anyone who didn't know it was there. The wall was made of some hard plastic Jack couldn't identify.

He yanked at fistfuls of his hair. "There's got to be _something_. A crack, or a switch, or a hole…"

He could hear stomping outside their door. The Muertons were coming back.

Just as it had before, the door swung open, and the enormous Muertons poured in.

Rose stepped forward, eyes filled with fury. "Where is he? What have you done with him?"

"Take the girl."

"No!" Jack shouted, pulling Rose behind him. "Don't – "

But the impact to his stomach came just as it had last time, and Rose screamed for him as the Muertons dragged her from the room. Jack staggered to the shut door, forehead pressed against it desperately.

He sat like that for several moments, thoughts churning in his mind. If time had looped once, it probably would again, right? A sort of desperation gnawed inside him, and his face set in a grimace.

He'd get another chance. And this time, he'd be ready.


	3. Chapter 3: Decapitation

**A/N: As if it weren't official already, I am now officially evil. Bwahahaha.**

* * *

Chapter Three: Decapitation

"He said, 'Whot's that on your – '"

Whipping out his blaster, Jack whirled around and shot the Muerton behind him. With a high-pitched howl, it collapsed to the ground, followed shortly by the Muerton next to it as it, too, received a hole to the chest. Instantly the entire restaurant was doused with screams and chaos as other patrons scrambled for the exit.

"What're you doing?" Rose cried, leaping out of her chair, eyes wide in shock.

"Jack, STOP!" the Doctor roared, lunging at him. He latched onto the arm holding the blaster, and Jack barely stopped himself from firing.

"They're going to kill us!" Jack shouted back in his face, flinging the Doctor off and readjusting his aim at the Muertons behind where the Doctor had sat. The Muertons dropped their bags and reached for their own blasters, but Jack was faster. Another one down –

"_DON'T!_" The Doctor shouted again, hurling himself at Jack.

Then several things happened at once. Jack aimed his blaster at the Muerton closest to Rose, Rose reached for both of them and screamed something intelligible, the Doctor yanked Jack's arm down so the blaster fired harmlessly into the ground….

And the Muerton behind Rose fired. The blast sailed past Rose and towards Jack, and slammed straight into the Doctor's head.

The Doctor's body dropped to the floor, gone from the neck up. The slightest trail of smoke wafted from where his head had been.

"DOCTOR!" Rose shrieked, dashing towards his fallen body without any concern for the additional blasts zipping over her head.

One of the blasts hit Jack's gun, and it crumbled to ash in his fingers. He couldn't watch the remaining Muertons advancing towards them; his entire world had been reduced to the Doctor's headless body and Rose clutching fistfuls of his overcoat.

"No, no, no, no…" Rose sobbed, gaping at the spot where the Doctor's head should have been. "You can't!"

The remaining three Muertons reached them, and one yanked Rose away from the Doctor's body by the arm. "No!" she screamed, thrashing wildly. "Regenerate! REGENERATE!"

Jack snapped from his stupor. "Let her – "

A second Muerton smashed a fist into Jack's jaw, which broke with a crack. He reeled, blinded by the pain, and didn't even feel the Muerton yanking his arms behind him.

As Jack's jaw crunched itself back into place, he stared at the glow spreading over the Doctor's curled fingers.

"He heals quickly," the third Muerton remarked, looking Jack up and down. "This must be – "

The Doctor exploded in a swirl of gold. Light burst from his hands and feet and radiated off where his head should have been. Jack, Rose, and even the Muertons gaped, frozen for a moment as the Doctor's fingers morphed and wiggled, as the seams of his suit strained, as his shoes bulged, and as a mound of flesh blossomed from his neck. The head bubbled and shaped like molten rock before hardening into chin, cheeks, nose, eyes, ears, hair…

The light vanished, and the new unconscious Doctor did not move. Jack stared, marveling at him. He'd never seen a regeneration before. This Doctor looked positively young, almost like a sleeping child. The overcoat was now too long for him; had he been standing, it might have dragged on the floor.

"Doctor," Rose whispered, face wet with tears, "Wake up, please wake up…"

"Are the non-Time Lords required?" asked the Muerton holding Jack.

"Orders say they are not, but they are preferred. Take them to the teleport."

Jack jerked uselessly as he and Rose were both dragged from the restaurant. The third Muerton followed close behind, the Doctor's limp form tossed over his shoulder. The Muertons took them to the building across the street and up two flights of stairs, then shoved both Rose and Jack into the round opening of a large machine. The third Muerton flung the Doctor's body at them, and pressed several buttons on the side of the device.

Rose hugged his body to her, still pleading. "Please wake up, please, please…"

Purple lights flashed on and off inside the teleport, and Jack's stomach churned as he felt it activate.

The second they arrived in their cell, Rose stumbled under the Doctor's weight, and Jack quickly snatched one of his arms and helped her lower him to the ground.

Rose rested her head on the Doctor's chest. "Hearts are beating," she said breathlessly, closing her eyes and nudging his overcoat aside to hear the thumping better.

Jack gripped the Doctor's wrist and felt the double pulse for himself. He breathed a sigh of relief, then froze when the Doctor's fingers wiggled.

The Doctor's green eyes flashed open so suddenly that both Rose and Jack leapt back.

"Doctor?" Rose whispered, eyes wide.

The Doctor didn't seem to hear her. He blinked, then snapped to his feet.

"Legs!" he announced, holding up his thigh for inspection. "I've still got legs!" He kissed the leg. "Good!"

Jack gawked, his mouth open in a perfect 'o.'

The Doctor dropped his leg and felt his bicep. "Arms, hands, fingers…ooh lots of fingers." He wiggled them in front of his eyes, fascinated, before touching his palms to his cheeks. "Head! I've got a head! I do like having a head…Look at me, I grew it back!" His forehead crinkled a moment. "I hope I don't grow another one. Imagine me with two heads!…Hair." He felt down to the tips of his longer hair. A look of pure panic crossed his face. "I'm a girl!" He felt his throat, fingers prodding at his Adam's apple. "No, _no_, I'm not a girl!" He sighed in relief, then seemed to notice Rose. He snatched her by the shoulders and shook her as he exclaimed, "Rose, Rose! Am I ginger?"

"N – no," Rose stuttered.

"Still not ginger," the Doctor mourned, releasing her and moving on with his checklist. He explored his face with his fingers like a blind person. "Ears? Yes. Eyes? Two. Nose…eh, I've had worse. Lips." He pressed his fingers to his lips and paused for a moment, face once again split in horror. "Lips? Lips are for kissing! What if I'm a rubbish kisser? Rose?"

Before either Jack or Rose could react, the Doctor once again seized Rose's shoulders and yanked her forward, snogging her deeply. They snapped apart after a long moment, Rose quite shell-shocked, the Doctor smacking his lips together thoughtfully. "Still got it. Too much chin, though. On my part, not yours, Rose. And now I'm thinking about apples. Apples, apples, apples. Maybe I'm having a craving! I've never had cravings before. Rose, you're a girl, you have cravings, what do cravings feel like?"

"Was he like this last time?" Jack finally asked, caught somewhere between disbelieving shock, overwhelming panic, and sheer amusement. Rose gaped wordlessly at the Doctor, apparently unable to respond.

"Captain Jack Harkness!" the new Doctor whirled to face him. "I am very, very cross with you! Cross ol' crossidy codger! But I'll remember why in a minute." He shrugged his overcoat off and tossed it to the opposite corner of the cell, followed by his suit jacket. "There's something very important here, something I'm missing…" he mused as he yanked his tie off and flung it away to join the coat and jacket. "Something _really_ important!" he paced past Rose and Jack, spun on his heel, and paced back, hands tapping on his head. "Oh!" Rose and Jack both jumped as the Doctor smacked his hands off the side of his skull. "Yes!" He threw his arms up in the air. "I was going to buy a fez!"

"A…fez?" Rose said faintly.

"Yep," the Doctor tried to pop his p, and frowned. "Don't think these lips do that anymore. _Blimey_, my head hurts. Suppose that's from getting it blown off…" He rubbed the back of his new head, resuming his pacing. "I liked that head. Had a gob and hair and teeth and everything. Wasn't a good head for wearing fezzes though. And now it's gone. Rather violently too. Still, better than falling off a tower….quicker than poison…less painful than radiation….certainly less humiliating than hitting my head on the console…"

He gagged suddenly as if unable to breathe. More of the golden light escaped his lips, and he staggered, barely keeping any sense of balance.

Jack reached over and steadied him. "Doctor, listen, I know you're sick, but I'm stuck in a time loop. What do I do? How can I fix it?"

"Time loop?" the Doctor wondered, nudging Jack away. "Rubbish. That doesn't make sense. _You _don't make sense. And neither do apples, come to think of it. 'An apple a day keeps the Doctor away,' ha!" He reached out, one hand taking Rose's, the other taking Jack's. "Come along Rose, Harkness, we're getting me some apples!" He strode straight towards the wall, and bounced right off it. "Ow!" He dropped his friends' hands and rubbed at his nose, glaring at the offending wall.

"Doctor," Jack tried again, "I said I'm stuck in a – "

"Shut up, Harkness, thinking!" the Doctor snapped, pondering the wall.

Rose put a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Doctor, you need to rest. Last time you regenerated…"

"Rest? I can't rest. I just remembered!" the Doctor exclaimed triumphantly. "Muertons!" He jabbed a finger at Jack and gave him a withering look that would make anyone else tremble. "You shot them."

"They blew your head off!" Jack retorted.

"And now we're in a cell!" continued the Doctor, surveying their cell. "And the Muertons are coming."

Sure enough, Jack could hear stomping approaching outside their cell door.

"Right, I'm the Doctor, and I _will_ get us out of this," said the Doctor confidently. Jack wondered just who he was supposed to be reassuring. "You trust me right? Jack?"

Jack's throat went dry. "Yeah, Doc."

"Rose?" the Doctor asked with slight hesitation, sounding a bit terrified of the answer. "Trust me?"

Rose gave a small smile. "Yeah, I do."

"Good, good," the Doctor murmured, wrapping an arm each around Rose's and Jack's shoulders and pulling them in so that all their heads almost touched. "That's all I need, really." He let them go as the door crashed open and stepped forward as the Muertons filed in. They aimed the enormous guns they carried at Rose and Jack.

"What do you want?" the Doctor demanded.

"You will come, Time Lord."

The Doctor scoffed. "Or what?"

"Or your friends will die."

"Thought as much," the Doctor said darkly. His eyes glinted with authority and danger and sheer power. "Alright, I'll come. But can I ask you something? Ever heard of the Cybermen? Sycorax, Autons, Slitheen?" His lip curled. "Daleks? Well, let me tell you something. They've all run from me at one point or another. They're all scared of me. And _they have good reason._"

The Doctor strode out with a Muerton on each side, his head held high.

The door slammed shut, and Jack's knees gave out. He crumpled against the wall and sank his head into his hands. What had he done? He'd killed the Doctor. He'd _killed_ the _Doctor_.

Rose scooped up the Doctor's discarded clothes and knelt next to Jack. "He must hate me," she murmured, hugging the overcoat to her chest.

Jack's head snapped up. "Hate _you_? I'm the one who got his head blown off!"

"He's gone through three bodies just since being with me. That's got to be some kind of record."

"If I hadn't done anything – "

"They were trying to kill him. You were only trying to stop them."

"They didn't blow his head off last time."

"What do you mean, 'last time?'"

Jack's fists clenched. "I mean, I'M STUCK IN A TIME LOOP! I'm living this over and over, and there's nothing you or the Doctor can do about it!"

Rose flinched as if he'd hit her, and Jack immediately regretted yelling.

"Fine, go on and blame yourself," said Rose pointedly, "But I'm getting out of here." She stuck her hand in the Doctor's suit jacket pocket up to her elbow, and fished out the sonic screwdriver. She fiddled with it experimentally.

Jack bit back a remark that it was pointless. They didn't even know if the stupid thing was on the right setting this time. They were still trapped. The Doctor had regenerated and was probably being tortured right now, and it was _all his fault_. He had only made their situation even worse.

Rose was right, though. There was no use sulking. What had she said to him, last time? That he'd been given another chance?

He could try again next time. He closed his eyes and mentally went over the positions of the Muertons in the restaurant. He replayed the earlier fight in his mind over and over, replanning his moves. His chest felt almost light again. He could fix it. He _would_ fix it.

While he composed his battle plans, Rose busied herself with escape attempts. She ran the screwdriver over the door, flicked it to a different setting, and examined the door again. Her features were fixed in a determined grimace, her brow scrunched in concentration as she tried again and again to get any reaction from the door, and then the walls. The Doctor's tie was wound around her bicep like some sort of armlet.

An hour and a half slowly ticked away, and Jack expected the Muertons to return for Rose, but they didn't. Then fleetingly he recalled Rose telling him how the Doctor had grown his hand back after his last regeneration. Leftover residual energy, she'd said. He wondered for a dark moment if the new Doctor was using that energy to heal faster, giving his torturers more fresh material.

Rose must have tried over a thousand different settings on the sonic screwdriver before the sound of marching Muertons emerged from beyond the cell door.

Jack sprung to his feet. "Get behind me," he ordered, "They're coming for you."

Rose's grip tightened on the screwdriver. "If they're coming for me, hiding behind you's not going to do anything."

Before Jack could answer, the door burst open.

"Where is he?" Rose demanded. "What have you done with him?"

"Take the girl," a Muerton ordered.

"No," Jack said desperately, trying to pull Rose back, "Take me, you don't need to hurt her – "

But the Muertons merely punched him in the gut, sending him to the floor, and yanked Rose out of the cell, struggling and screaming for him. Jack rose from the floor, but stopped himself from fighting any further. It hadn't turned out too well last time.

Rose's screams echoed in his head far longer than they echoed in the empty cell. Jack took a deep breath, leaned against the wall and waited. It didn't matter that the Doctor had regenerated, didn't matter that they'd taken Rose, because he knew where he had gone wrong and he was going to fix it.

He had to.

* * *

**A/N: Every time you review, Three remembers how to fix part of his TARDIS, Four gets a jelly baby, Five gets to play cricket, Seven gets unlimited rice pudding, Ten gets a cookie, and Eleven gets a new fez.**


	4. Chapter 4: Self Deception and an Ally

**A/N: The Doctors thank all reviewers for their lovely treats. =)**

**This is about the half-way point of the story, I think.  
**

* * *

"He said, 'Whot's that on your – "

Jack whipped his blaster out and shot over Rose's head. Behind her, the Muerton who had once killed the Doctor crumpled with a yell.

The Doctor – the old Doctor, with his spiky hair and runaway gob – jerked towards him, yelling something, but Jack merely dodged him and shot another one of the attackers behind the Doctor. Screams rang through the restaurant as Jack blasted down another Muerton. Three down, three to –

Rose shrieked, "Behind – " just as a blast grazed the back of Jack's shoulder. The blaster fell from his hand, and he yelled in pain as he whirled to face the source. One of the Muertons had produced its own blaster, aiming wildly at him. The Muerton shot at Jack a second time, and the blast just missed him.

Instead, it zipped past him and straight into Rose's chest.

Rose's mouth opened in surprise. Her hand lifted to touch the hole at her heart, as if to confirm that it was actually there. Then she collapsed to the floor.

"ROSE!" the Doctor screamed.

The remaining three attackers were on them now, seizing them both and pressing the chloroform cloths to their faces. Jack thrashed for a moment before feeling his limbs start to droop. He sluggishly watched as the other two attackers swarmed over the Doctor. The Time Lord lashed out at both the one holding him and the one trying to smother him, arms and legs both striking flesh.

With a kick to a Muerton's head that left it staggering, the Doctor tore free and rushed to Rose's body. His fingers traced the hole over her heart disbelievingly as he cried, "No, no, no _please_…"

One of the Muertons came up behind him and wrapped an arm around his neck, while the other quickly recovered from the kick and pressed the cloth over his face. The Doctor looked drained, unwilling to do much more than rasp under the cloth. His eyes never budged from Rose's motionless body.

Jack fought the fuzziness engulfing him, but it was no use.

* * *

Jack groaned as he opened his eyes. The now horribly familiar cell greeted him. He slowly lifted his pounding head up, only to find the Doctor was not sitting injured in his usual corner.

"Hello, Jack," the Doctor greeted him dully, leaning against the opposite wall. He watched as Jack slowly sat up, rubbing his head. "You're alive." His tone was less pleased and more resigned.

"You're awake!" Jack exclaimed, sitting up faster. The blood rushed to his head and made him see spots, but he no longer cared. "You gotta help me – how do we get out of here? Where is here? Who are the Muertons working for?"

"I was going to ask you the same question," the Doctor said bitterly. "So that I know who killed Rose Tyler."

"But you have to know!" Jack said desperately.

"I don't," he snapped back, "And if you don't know who they are, how did you know they were coming?"

"I'm stuck in a time loop."

"You're stuck in a time loop?" the Doctor snorted. "Impossible. I'd remember. I'm a Time Lord. If time was resetting, I'd be the first one aware of it."

Jack leaned back and sighed. "Well, how else do you explain me repeating this capture, what, four times now?"

"You've repeated _this_ four times?" the Doctor perked up slightly. "That's why you started shooting," he realized.

Jack shrugged. "I was trying to stop them before they got us. Didn't work. And Rose…" He lowered his gaze. "This is the first time she's died. I'm sorry."

The Doctor swallowed. "Time loop, you said. The starting point, right when you started shooting, is before she dies. Which means…"

"She'll be okay," Jack finished.

"She'll be okay," the Doctor repeated, but he didn't smile. The lost look in his eyes morphed to one of focus.

Jack explained the basic course of events. With slight hesitation, he even mentioned the regeneration. But the Doctor was so consumed with solving the problem and saving Rose, he didn't even bother to ask.

The Doctor paced, running one hand through his hair. "Let me see if we have this straight, shall we? Step one: we are captured. That has to happen, because if you try to attack them, Rose or I die."

Jack nodded. "Right."

"Step two: the attackers come take me away. Presumably they want information of some sort which I am unwilling to give them. How long am I gone?"

"About an hour and a half."

"Long enough to use a mind probe or try torture. Neither of which would work. Step three, they come get Rose, probably for leverage against me. Step four, forty-five minutes later the loop repeats. Have I got that right?"

"Yep."

The Doctor frowned as he thought. "If they threatened to hurt Rose, I would tell them whatever they wanted."

"She wouldn't want you to," Jack objected.

"I'm just telling you what most likely would happen. I'd tell them whatever they wanted, or at the very least pretend to."

"Then why am I repeating this over and over?"

The Doctor gave him a grim smile. "Well that's just the thing, isn't it?"

Jack's brow scrunched in confusion. "What is?"

"It's not just that there's a time loop," the Doctor explained, "It's that _you're_ the one who knows about it. Not me."

"But why is that weird?"

"Because," the Doctor stopped his pacing and stared at him, "The only way I wouldn't be able to tell if I was in a time loop is if I erased my memory of it."

Jack blinked. "Why would you do that?"

"I think…and mind you, I'm usually right…I think I'm the one _causing_ the time loop."

"Causing the time loop," Jack repeated, trying to wrap his mind around it. "But don't time loops just…happen? Can Time Lords create time loops?"

"No…" The Doctor ruffled his hair. "I mean, we could, back when there were more of us…"

"You mean there's another Time Lord here?"

"No, definitely not. I would know, and there isn't."

"But how do you know?"

"_I know._"

"Well, then how do you know you're causing it?"

The Doctor paused. "Well, it _could_ be caused naturally. But it'd be a rather remarkable coincidence that one would end right there when we're all in danger. You're not making it, and I doubt Rose is making it, so that leaves me. And the fact remains that I should remember it, and I don't. Which means I've wiped my own memory. And the only reason I can think of for doing that is if I created the time loop and have a good reason for forgetting it."

"Fine," Jack snapped, "Great, fan-freaking-tastic. And _why_? Why would you repeat this hell over and over again?"

The Doctor ignored him, still thinking hard.

Jack's anger diffused slightly. "Doctor?"

"I'm saving Rose," the Doctor realized.

"What?"

"Something horribly, horribly bad must happen in that room," the Doctor continued, "And somehow, I am giving her a reset button."

"But Rose isn't here this time, so what happens now?"

The Doctor thought. "They come take Rose away an hour and a half after they take me?"

"Yeah."

"They'll take you this time instead."

"So…"

"We wait," the Doctor said dully, slumping back against the wall. "They come get me, I refuse to help them, they come get you, I somehow reset the time loop as I've apparently done before."

"And then I'll know what's going on," Jack nodded, "And hopefully the next you can figure it out." His shoulders slumped, muscles he hadn't realized he'd tensed relaxing. The Doctor knew what he was doing. Jack didn't need to worry anymore.

"Everything I've said, creating a time loop, and all that, is impossible, by the way," the Doctor said mildly, as if stating the obvious, "This is all a purely hypothetical construct I'm using to convince myself that I can get Rose back. Odd little fantasy you've cooked up for me Jack, but thank you, it's helping."

Jack barely restrained himself from hitting his head against the wall. "Whatever keeps you this side of sane, Doc."

"The real question," mused the Doctor, "In this purely hypothetical scenario, is why you are the only one who remembers."

Jack jerked to attention with a start. Footsteps rang from just beyond the cell door.

"I mean, I can make myself forget. But Rose? Why would I erase Rose's memory?"

"Doctor," Jack interrupted, and the Doctor looked up at him. "They're coming back." He held out a hand for the Doctor to take, and pulled him to his feet.

As usual, the door crashed open to allow a horde of armed Muertons entrance.

"Take the Time Lord."

Two Muertons stepped forward, and slammed both the Doctor and Jack into the wall.

"Alright, alright," the Doctor winced. "No need to hurt him, I'll come without a fuss."

Instantly the Muerton pressing Jack to the wall released him, and Jack felt a hot stickiness drip down the back of his head as he watched both Muertons seize the Doctor.

They dragged him to the door. The Doctor met Jack's eyes and Jack gave him a small nod back. Then the cell door slammed shut, and Jack found himself alone again.

He leaned back against the wall and waited. An hour and a half. He counted the seconds to try and keep track. One Boeshane Peninsula, two Boeshane Peninsula, three Boeshane Peninsula….

At about two thousand seven hundred and forty-two Boeshane Peninsulas, Jack blinked.

"He said, 'Whot's that on your head, mate?' And Rose – "

"_No!_" Jack hissed in frustration as he realised he was back in the restaurant. Only forty-five minutes had passed since the Doctor had been taken from their cell. Why had the loop started early?

Then he noticed Rose, beautiful, _alive_ Rose, wasn't laughing at the Doctor either. "But…" she murmured, hand covering her heart in bewilderment.

Jack's own heart pounded. _Rose remembered_.

"We're caught in a time loop," Jack explained, the words coming out clipped and practiced.

The Doctor's grin faded as he noticed neither of his friends were laughing. "What?"

Jack mindlessly repeated his warning, his attention fully focused on the Muerton behind Rose, who also seemed to be hesitating in confusion. He opened his mouth to tell the Doctor and Rose to run; if the Muertons were hesitating, maybe they could leg it –

Darkness engulfed him as the wretchedly familiar chloroform-soaked bag was yanked over his head. Jack tumbled backward out of his chair, both startled that he was being attacked on schedule and gagging on the smell.

"Rose, get down!" Jack heard the Doctor yell. Over the sounds of his own smothered breaths and struggles underneath the bag, Jack heard the sonic screwdriver buzz and Rose shrieking and crashing mingled with the Doctor's cries of pain….

_Don't fight,_ Jack tried to scream, but the words were garbled beneath the bag, and opening his mouth only made him breathe in more of the chloroform, and soon he could hear no more.

* * *

Jack awoke with no one to greet him. Ignoring the dull headache that accompanied the aftermath of chloroform, he jerked up into a sitting position. Rose lay crumpled next to him, hair wrapped over half her face. On her other side lay the Doctor, or rather, what was left of him.

Jack checked the Doctor's hearts – one beating, one not, as he knew they would be – and leaned the Time Lord against the wall. He'd memorized every bruise and criss-crossed scratch on the Doctor's face several loops before, and bitterly marveled at how the wounds were in the same spot every single time. Then he crawled over to Rose. He'd fallen prey to the chloroform first this time. Now he'd enjoy the benefits of waking up first as well.

Soon Rose's eyes fluttered open. "J – Jack?" she murmured weakly.

"In the flesh." He managed to muster the smallest of smiles.

"Restaurant…" Suddenly she sat bolt upright. "The Doctor – they were hurting him, he – " Her gaze fell upon the mangled heap that was the Doctor against the wall, and her eyes filled with panic.

"He's okay!" Jack reassured her as she pulled herself over to him and gently lay her head on his chest. "Mostly. He's still got one heart left, I checked."

Hearing the thump for herself, Rose relaxed only the slightest bit. Frowning, her hand returned to the spot where, in another version of events, a hole had resided. "Jack, I _died_. Except I'm okay. Do you think I'm like you? But it was more like…I saw the future or sommat…"

"The Doctor would know if you were like me," he assured her. "I told you, we're caught in a time loop. Only this time you noticed."

"Noticed?" Rose gaped at him in alarm. "You mean it's happened before and I don't remember?"

Jack sighed. "If it's any comfort, you only died last time."

"Last – last time?"

Jack sighed. "Come on, the Doctor'll be up in a few minutes."

They sat on either side of the wounded Doctor. Rose took to running her fingers through his hair. Jack just stared, trying to figure out what in the world to tell him.

Finally, at last: "R – Rose?"

In one swift moment Jack sprung into action, pressing on the Doctor's shoulder. "Don't move," he ordered, speaking fast. "You'll only hurt yourself worse. Rose is fine, or at least she is this time."

"_This_ time?" the Doctor croaked, trying to shove himself off the wall. Jack pushed back on him harder.

Rose laid a hand on his arm. "Jack says we're caught in a time loop."

The Doctor blinked at both of them incredulously. "That's – "

"Impossible," Jack finished, "You'd remember, and as a Time Lord you'd be the first to know if time was resetting."

The Doctor's eyebrows lifted. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"You told me last time. Now for once in all of time, just assume I'm right and you're wrong, and we are actually stuck in a time loop."

"That I can't remember," the Doctor added sceptically.

"And that Rose couldn't remember until now," Jack continued. "Because she died."

Rose nodded in agreement, and the Doctor looked her up and down. "How?" he asked.

She frowned at the memory. "We were laughing, and Jack started shooting people, and they shot back and – they hit me. And then I woke up and it was like time had started over because you were talking about Kelvin Kalrezek again like nothing happened."

"I was trying to just kill the Muertons before they captured us," Jack explained hastily. The Doctor wasn't likely to take kindly to Rose dying, even if it hadn't turned out to be permanent.

The Doctor did glare at Jack accusingly, but he didn't comment. He seemed to be thinking, battered features screwed up in concentration. "That does sound like a time loop," he admitted. His voice rasped with effort. "Start from the beginning."

Wary of the rapidly dwindling time available before the Doctor was taken away, Jack explained the Muertons' attacks, the Doctor's removal from the cell, and Rose following shortly afterward. He repeated as best he could what the Doctor had said in previous loops, and gave the current Doctor every scrap of information he knew. When he got to the part about the Doctor's regeneration, however, the Time Lord perked up, although he still struggled for breath.

"What was I like? Was I ginger?"

"No."

"Taller?"

"Nope."

"Older?"

Jack snorted. "Definitely not. You looked about twelve."

"Twelve?" Rose said in alarm.

"Alright, twenty-five," Jack conceded, "And don't worry, Rose, you seemed to like him snogging you enough."

The Doctor sighed. "Still not ginger."

"Anyway…" Jack continued his story quickly.

When he'd finished, the Doctor's arm raised slightly before dropping with a wince. If he'd been healthy, Jack knew he would be running his fingers through his hair. "Well, can't say this isn't a dilemma."

"Which part?" Jack asked drily. "The part where I'm caught in a time loop?"

"Oh, no we're all caught in a time loop," the Doctor assured him, gesturing from him to Rose. "You, you, me, the Muertons, and whoever's behind all this. But the memories of it have been wiped from everyone's mind, except you, Jack. And now Rose. Distance, that's the key."

Rose rubbed his shoulder soothingly. "Distance from what?"

"From the eye of the storm." Seeing the blank looks on both their faces, the Doctor continued, his voice a pained wheeze, "The epicenter of the time loop. Me. Or rather, whatever I'm doing in there that causes the time loop. Everyone within a certain radius of the epicenter forgets. You, Jack, have kept your memories because you're too far away."

"That's why I remember this time," Rose realized. "If I died last time, they'd've left my body there, yeah? And I'd be too far away."

The Doctor nodded. "Exactly."

"Some of the Muertons looked a bit confused, this time," Jack realized. "The ones I killed."

"They remembered too!" Rose gasped. "So whoever's employing them knows what you're trying to do now!"

The Doctor jerked his head to the side in a half-hearted attempt to shake his head. "Muertons? Nah, they won't say a thing. Mercenary race, the Muertons. Bred to take orders and not much else. Very to the letter. Won't do a thing more than they've been hired to do. Not to mention that they hate looking thick, and mentioning they've got déjà vu wouldn't be likely to go over well. So if their assignment was to bag-and-tag us, they won't do more than that."

Jack rubbed his forehead. "That's why the loop started early as well. You figured out that if I got too close to the epicenter, I'd forget about the time loop and we'd be stuck in square one."

The Doctor beamed weakly. "I _am_ rather brilliant. So this time, I'll just tell them whatever they want to know, or at least pretend to. Then hopefully they won't feel a need to take Rose, and in the meantime I avoid a thrilling bout of torture. Works out nicely for everyone."

All three tensed as they heard stomping outside their cell.

"Doctor," Rose said suddenly, "What about you?"

"They're coming for me," muttered the Doctor through clenched teeth as he strained to get to his feet. "Not much we can do about that."

"I mean, how can Jack convince you not to fight next time so you don't end up…like this? Maybe he could say something only you would know?"

She and Jack carefully helped the Doctor to his feet. He leaned on both of them, gasping with effort.

"Say 'Theta Sigma, time loop,' first thing in the restaurant," the Doctor decided.

"That a code?" Rose wondered.

The door burst open, and the Muertons filed in the door. "Old Academy nickname," the Doctor finished, speaking fast, "Should shock me into listening to you. And mention….mention Susan Foreman."

"Susan – ?" Jack repeated in confusion.

"Take the Time Lord," a Muerton ordered.

The Doctor, Rose, and Jack all tensed and didn't move. Oddly, neither did the Muertons.

"Well, go on then!" snarled the Doctor after a moment, fists clenching. "What're you waiting for, eh? Trying to decide which of my friends to shoot?" He glared. "Don't you dare touch either of them."

A Muerton grabbed each of the Doctor's arms and yanked him towards the door. For all his angry bravado, the Doctor stumbled and hissed as his legs gave way underneath him.

Rose stepped forward and reached out for him without thinking, but Jack snatched her arm and pulled her back. No need for Rose to get herself shot.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Rose shoved Jack's arm away and paced the length of their cell. "Can we get out of here?"

Jack shook his head. "We've tried. With and without the screwdriver."

Rose hugged herself, running her hands up and down her arms. "So what do we do now?"

"Wait for the loop to repeat and tell the next Doctor. Eventually, he'll figure it out."

Rose frowned. "I don't like it. I feel like we're missing something…"

Jack laid down on the floor, hands behind his head. It was going to be a long wait.


	5. Chapter 5: Plan A

**A/N: Happy Valentine's Day everyone. 3**

* * *

"He said, 'Whot's that on your head, mate?' And Rose – "

"Theta Sigma," Jack declared, "We're stuck in a time loop."

The Doctor broke off in midsentence, not even remembering to close his gaping jaw. He couldn't have looked more shocked than if Jack had sprouted a second head.

Rose, who had initially been startled by the sudden change in surroundings, added, "Susan Foreman." Her lips twitched at the Doctor's expression.

"What?" At the name, the Doctor turned positively white. "_What_? How do you know – "

"Don't fight," Jack said quickly, keeping one eye on the Muerton behind Rose. "Trust us, breathe it in and don't fight."

"Breathe what in?" the Doctor asked, looking even more bewildered.

The Muertons descended, and the Doctor soon discovered exactly what to breathe in.

* * *

In the cell, the uninjured Doctor absorbed their quick summary of their situation in silence. His only interruption arrived when Jack reached the part about his regeneration, when he leaned forward, eyes alive with interest.

"Was I – "

Jack didn't give him time to ask. "No, you weren't ginger, no, you weren't taller, bigger chin, no sideburns, looked about twelve, Rose still loves you, and you wouldn't shut up about apples and fezzes."

The Doctor blinked. "Blimey, we _have_ had this conversation before."

When Jack and Rose had finally finished, the Doctor rubbed his face, thinking hard. "Right, then. How long did you say we've got before they come for me?"

"Couple minutes more, maybe."

The Doctor took out the sonic screwdriver and ran it over the length of the room, then inspected the tool closely. "No weaknesses sensed," he announced.

"You tried that," Rose reminded him, "_We_ tried it already."

The Doctor hit the screwdriver into his palm repeatedly. "I might not be able to pick it up on the scan, but that might be because it's being blocked." He licked the wall, then made a face. "Bilitane, yep. Just like I thought, blocks the scan from seeing what's behind it. A sort of lead to my sort of super x-ray vision. I could resonate it, though, break through in about thirty minutes."

Jack groaned. "You don't have thirty minutes."

"But you do. Take it." The Doctor held the screwdriver out to him. "Setting 458-B."

"But how do we get _you_ out?" Rose asked as Jack took it.

"If we really are in a time loop, it might take you a few tries…sorry." The Doctor pressed his ear against the wall and tapped it in a couple of places. "I'd try right about here." He pointed, frowning.

Jack flicked the screwdriver on and pressed it to the wall.

"Perfect. Hold it right there," said the Doctor. "Best I can do without knowing whose prison this is…Certain species' prisons may have certain weaknesses. If I knew who captured us…" He stuck his hands in his pockets. "Ah, well. Nothing I can do about it right now. I don't suppose I've yet figured out _how_ I'm supposed to be creating this time loop?"

Jack shook his head. "You just said that it would require another Time Lord. And you were sure there weren't any."

The Doctor nodded. "There definitely aren't."

Jack sighed. "So you say."

"Yes, so I say," the Doctor insisted. He counted off on his fingers, waving his hands around wildly. "Right, so I need to know one, who is commanding the Muertons so I can figure how to break out of this cell, two, what I did to get us into this in the first place, and C...No, sorry, three, I need to know how I'm going to create a time loop, because I have absolutely no idea. None. Nada. Zip. Three I'm going to have to just figure out on my own, because apparently I've done it before anyway. One and two, you'll have to figure out somehow. Questions, anyone?"

"Doctor, who's Susan Foreman?" Rose asked.

The Doctor stiffened, Adam's apple bobbing up and down, feet rooted to the spot.

"I'm sorry," Rose said quickly, "It's just….was she a companion?"

"Yes." The sound came out strangled. "No. More than that."

"Oh," Rose said softly. She bit her lip. "Well, you've probably loved someone before me, and I'm sure you'll love someone after me, and I was just…wondering…if she…" She took a deep breath. "If she might be one of them."

The Doctor's haunted eyes blinked, and it seemed to break the paralysis. "Oh, Rose, I…Susan is…I mean…" His words dwindled to a whisper. "Susan was my granddaughter."

Jack stared at the Doctor. He'd known the Time Lord was impossibly old and had lost all his people, but it had never occurred to him that the Doctor had had _family_. And not even children…_grandchildren_…

He'd never realised the Doctor had gone through the exact same thing he had, outliving even his own descendents.

Rose covered her mouth, clearly regretting having asked.

The awkward silence was broken when footsteps sounded in the hallway. Jack flicked the screwdriver off and stuck it in his pocket.

The Doctor clapped his hands together, all traces of mourning gone. "Right, you two, it's been exactly five minutes and thirty-three seconds since I woke up, and you two took about another fifteen seconds. For future reference." The stomping came closer, and the Doctor spoke faster, antsy hands gesturing in increasing agitation. "Take care of each other, keep resonating the wall, don't do anything I wouldn't do, be brilliant, and look at me, I'll just pull a time loop out of nowhere."

Rose placed a hand on his shoulder. "You can do it," she stated simply and calmly.

"How?" He asked, voice hollow. "It's impossible."

She grinned. "I've seen you do loads of impossible things. What's one more?"

The door crashed open, the Muertons poured in, and the Doctor pasted on a smile and waved. "Hello."

"Take the Time Lord."

"Oh, am I off to a party?" the Doctor asked brightly. "I love a good party."

The Muertons did not respond as they seized him.

"Life of the party, me," the Doctor continued as they dragged him out of the cell. "Tell me this party has bananas! It's not really a party without a banana you know…"

Once the door shut behind them, Jack whipped the screwdriver back on and resumed pressing it at the wall.

Rose pressed a hand to the door, frowning in confusion. "They didn't hesitate this time."

"What?" asked Jack, not really listening. His thoughts flew everywhere, solving the Doctor's "one" and "two."

"The Muertons," Rose mused, "They hesitated last time, didn't they, before they took the Doctor?"

He nodded absent-mindedly, absorbed in his own thoughts. "Yeah…"

Resonating the wall was not an activity for the hyper, Jack found. Aside from the slight buzz, the sonic screwdriver didn't seem to be doing anything. He declined Rose's offer to do the resonating for awhile, though, simply because there wasn't anything else to do. At least holding the screwdriver to the wall gave him some sort of purpose.

"What if we don't break through in time?" Rose asked, peeking over his shoulder for what seemed the thousandth time. "Shouldn't we have some sort of plan B?"

"Yeah, I've been thinking about it," Jack admitted, "And I think I've got an idea."

"Which is…?"

Jack sighed. "Well, you probably won't like it…Basically, I'm going to kill myself."

Rose's lips pinched together. "Yeah, don't like it. How's that supposed to help? Don't really fancy waiting for the loop to repeat with your corpse."

"No, I mean in the restaurant, right before the Muertons come. I die, they take you and the Doctor and leave my body in the restaurant..."

Rose's face relaxed as she warmed to the idea. "You wake up and find out where we've gone?"

"Exactly. Or figure out who hired the Muertons."

"And you'll be out of range!" Rose realised excitedly. "And I can tell the Doctor what's going on, keep him from being tortured, and then the loop will reset again…"

"And then I can tell the Doctor who has us and where we are," Jack finished with a grin, buoyed by Rose's excitement.

Rose's excitement dimmed as she surveyed the sonic screwdriver pressed to the wall with a critical eye. "Still rather get out now, though. If we don't find the Doctor our first go, we'll give Plan B a try, yeah?"

"Sounds good."

More minutes passed, and the wall remained smooth and blank. Rose sat against the opposite wall, arms wrapped around her legs, and rested her head on her knees. She muttered slightly to herself, and Jack knew she was practicing the quickest summary of their situation to tell the Doctor, just in case.

As the minutes crawled by and he stared at the unyielding wall, Jack found his thoughts drifting to wherever the Doctor was.

"He's fine," Rose said suddenly, as if knowing what Jack was thinking. "He's gotta be. He's not injured and they're not torturing him…" She trailed off a moment. "He's just…talking. Letting his gob loose. 'S better than his legs at running." Her voice lost confidence with each word. "Probably talking their ears off…"

In the meantime, the Bilitane cracked loudly. Discomforting thoughts forgotten, Rose leapt to her feet and rushed to inspect the crack with Jack. Together they shoved their fingers inside, widening the hole until it was the size of both their heads put together.

Jack nearly laughed in relief. The jagged wires laced through the inside of the wall were things he recognized.

"What is it?" Rose wondered.

"It's set up just like the Time Agency's bunker," said Jack happily, reaching for a pale blue wire. "This one's for the door. Just yank this out and we're out of here!"

He yanked the wire, and the pain was instant, red-hot knives stabbing up his arm and into the rest of him before he had time to think. His body jerked and shuddered, still clinging to the wire, blinded to everything but pain, pain, pain, Rose's scream, and the crushing oblivion.

* * *

**A/N: You know what would be the best V-day present ever? *nudge nudge***


	6. Chapter 6: Plan B

**A/N: Bit more romance in this chapter. Hope nobody minds.**

* * *

Jack returned to the living in the restaurant, across from the haggard-looking Rose and the Doctor, who carried on obliviously with his story.

"He said, 'Whot's that on your head, mate?' And – "

"You alright?" Rose said tiredly.

"It killed me!" Jack whined. "That just wasn't fair!"

Rose sighed. "Tried the green one after you…well. Woke up here, so I'm guessing that didn't work either. Plan B, then?"

Jack nodded grimly.

The Doctor seemed to have noticed neither of them were paying attention to his story, because his laughter faded. "What is it?"

Rose spoke this time. "Theta Sigma, we're caught in a time loop."

The Doctor's expression was nearly as comical as it had been the first time. "What? _What_?"

"Time loop, Doc," Jack added, drawing his blaster slowly. "Rose'll explain." His eyes and Rose's met, and he nodded at her, bracing himself. She gripped the Doctor's arm in a vise and shut her eyes.

"Jack, what are you doing?" the Doctor asked in dread as Jack pointed the blaster at his own head.

"Don't fight, breathe it in, listen to Rose," Jack said like a mantra.

Realization dawned, and the Doctor took in a sharp breath and reached for him. "Jack, _don't_ – "

Jack pulled the trigger.

* * *

Jack gasped and opened his eyes to find the restaurant nearly emptied. Chairs were strewn everywhere as the last few Warrenites waddled for the exits. No one seemed to have noticed his return to the living.

He sat up and checked his own table first. No sign of a struggle. Not even the glasses were tipped over. Good. The Doctor had listened to Rose and gone without a fight.

Picking up his blaster, Jack started to follow after the panicked crowds. He stopped when he spotted a familiar face.

"Urzen!" he called.

The restaurant owner froze in shock. The tray he was holding clattered to the floor. "But you were – you were – "

"I have issues staying dead," Jack explained with a shrug. Urzen trembled, staring at him as if he were a bomb with a lit fuse. "Look, can you tell me how exactly the Doctor saved your restaurant? Who did he save it from?"

Urzen shook even harder, his beady eyes blinking in fright. "I'm sorry! They – they said he was a dangerous criminal – and if I helped them – they told me to say he had helped me, and – "

"Wait, _what_?" His stomach boiled, and he snatched fistfuls of Urzen's shirt. "You mean you _turned us in_? To who? Who are they?"

Urzen made a horrible squeaking sound, and Jack shoved him away before he did something that the Doctor wouldn't have approved. The restaurant owner fled, shoving chairs behind him to block the path.

Jack stared after him, seething. They'd been expected. More than that, this was a _hunt_. This wasn't just some random kidnapper; this was somebody who not only wanted the Doctor, but knew how to set a trap for him.

And worse, he still had no idea who.

The restaurant was completely empty now, and Jack leapt over fallen chairs to get to the exit. The crisp night air stung his face as he traced steps taken several loops before, to the building across the street. He drew his blaster, listening for Muertons, but he encountered no one as he climbed the stairs to the teleport.

He inspected the teleport closely. It'd been disabled, so he couldn't travel through it, but he thought he knew how it worked. If he could track the signal of the last jump…

His mouth set into a grim line as he flexed his fingers. No vortex manipulator, no Doctor to guide him, not even a lousy sonic screwdriver. This was going to take awhile.

* * *

The first thing the Doctor registered when he awoke was the cloyingly sweet taste in his mouth. He ran his tongue around his mouth, considering. "Chloroform?" He wondered aloud. That wasn't right. Chloroform shouldn't have affected him; how did –

_Rose_. He sat bolt upright. The Muertons had drugged him and Rose, and if they'd hurt her –

She was next to him, hair draped over her face, and laying absolutely, unforgivably still.

His surge of panic subsided for the most part when he pressed his fingers to her neck and felt her pulse. One heart, just the one, ba-bum, ba-bumming away. He brushed the hair out of her face and glanced around at their surroundings. Small cell, what looked like a door sealed into the far wall, walls white and solid, ceiling just high enough for him to stand straight, dim light embedded in the ceiling. Too generic for him to identify its owner. Where did those Muertons come from, who were they working for, and what did they want with him and Rose? And why had Jack abandoned them?

He processed all this in the seconds before Rose stirred.

"Rose?" the Doctor murmured, wrapping an arm around her to prop her up. "Rose?"

With a groan, Rose opened her eyes. He smiled at her in relief, the panic etched into his face moments before gone. "Hello."

She blinked and sluggishly sat up.

"Oh, good, you're alright," the Doctor said cheerily. "Now do you mind telling me where we are and why I've let a bunch of Muertons drug us? My mouth tastes almost worst than pears."

She tackled him in a hug like she hadn't seen him in ages. "Because if you didn't let them they would have beaten you half to death."

The Doctor hugged her back in confusion. "Oh, those blokes? The big, muscle-y ones that do other people's dirty work? I could have taken them, easy. Still doesn't explain why Jack blew his head off. What's going on?"

"Long story."

He pulled her away from him and held her at arms length. "So tell me. Being enigmatic's my job, Rose. It doesn't suit you at all."

"We're caught in a time loop."

The Doctor's voice went up an octave. "What? That's – "

"Doctor, for once, just this once," Rose snapped, "Shut your gob."

Recognizing the expression Jackie often wore when she was preparing for a slap, the Doctor closed his mouth with a snap.

"You don't remember because you are _causing_ the time loop," Rose recited, "And erasing the memories of everyone, including you, within a certain distance. That distance doesn't include me and Jack, so we remember. Five and a half minutes from the moment you woke up, the Muertons are going to take you away. I don't know what happens after that, but our guess – _your _guess – is that whoever hired the Muertons wants some information out of you regarding whatever the future you did on Warren Delta Three before we got there. Jack blew his head off so that he can avoid being captured and figure out who hired the Muertons so you can get us out of this cell."

The Doctor stared at her as she spoke. Every word made logical sense, and yet absolutely no sense at all. "Blimey. Did you have that practiced?"

"There wasn't much else to do while we waited for the loop to reset," she replied, exasperated. "So what do we do?"

"Because that'd be pretty hard to make up on the spot," the Doctor continued, "Which makes your story more believable."

"Believable?" Rose repeated incredulously.

"Creating a time loop is impossible without other Time Lords. Which means I'm hallucinating or something." He frowned. "I'm still drugged."

"Theta Sigma was your old Academy nickname," Rose said flatly. "You woke up fifteen seconds before I did. You had a granddaughter named Susan Foreman."

The Doctor blanched. "What?"

"You told me all that to prove to yourself later that this really is a time loop."

The Doctor rubbed the back of his head. "But Rose, it's still impossible. I mean really, properly impossible."

She smiled a bit. "That's what you said last time. And I told you I've seen you do loads of impossible things. And sure enough, you did one more."

The Doctor opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.

"Now how long've we got?"

"You said five and a half minutes," the Doctor calculated. "It's been a minute twenty since you woke up."

"Four more minutes," she smiled sadly, hugging him again.

The Doctor slung his overcoat around her. "So, what, they come take me in four minutes. Assuming this isn't a drug-induced hallucination."

"It's not."

"Alright, then, it's not. But then what? What happens to you?"

"I sit here, bored out of my mind until the loop resets. Until _you_ reset it."

"But why are you here?" he asked, dread creeping into his voice. "If they just want me, why did they take you too?"

"Because…" she hesitated. "Originally, Jack said, they took you away, for a long time, and Jack thinks they tortured you. But you didn't tell them anything, so they came and took me. And then the loop repeated." The Doctor's grip on her tightened, and she hastily added, "But that's not going to happen, because you're going to tell them whatever they want to know, or at least pretend to. And I'm going to try and escape, maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Last time didn't go too well," Rose admitted. "You told us the wall was made out of…Billy-train?"

"Bilitane?" the Doctor said delightedly, examining the wall with fresh glee. "Blimey, I could resonate through that in thirty minutes!"

"We did. And there were some wires in there. And Jack said he knew what he was doing, and pulled out a wire." She bit her lip. "And it electrocuted him."

"Ah." The Doctor winced. "You'd better not try it then."

"Already did," she replied flippantly, "Pulled another wire. It killed me too. Might as well give it another shot. You're going to reset the loop anyway. Doesn't matter if I die."

She said it almost like it was a joke, but the Doctor's mouth went dry. "Don't say that," he replied firmly. "It matters."

"Well how else am I going to help?"

Something electric coursed through him, and the Doctor's voice hardened like ice. "You dead is not going to help me. So you're not getting the screwdriver."

Her hands on his chest clenched fistfuls of his coat. "But I want to do something useful!"

His eyes darkened. "No."

Rose pulled away from him. "It might help. I might get the right wire this time. I need to try."

"_I said no._"

She glared back at him, but her eyes gradually softened. She embraced him again, planting her lips along his jaw until she reached his ear. "Please, Doctor," she whispered. She snaked a hand into his jacket, feeling for the screwdriver.

The Doctor snatched her by the wrist and pulled her away so he could look her in the eye. "Rose," he said, voice nearly breaking on the syllable but filled with resolve, "I'm not going to let you. What if I don't manage to create a time loop?"

"You will." She said it like it was fact, as unquestionable as the laws of time or Jack's existence.

"But what if I don't?" he snapped. "What if I don't? What if I don't manage to do the impossible and you _stay dead?_"

Rose observed the way he clenched his teeth, the way his muscles tensed, on edge, and said tenderly, "You can. I believe in you."

The Doctor let out a laugh, hoarse and hollow and mirthless. "You have far, far too much faith in me, Rose Tyler."

The corner of her mouth twitched. "Maybe I do. But if anybody can do the impossible, it's you."

The Doctor considered this for a moment. "True enough, I suppose…" But his hearts thundered like war drums in his chest, and he thought he could already feel the emptiness her leaving would give him. There was impossible, and there was _impossible_. He wondered which would hurt more, her actual death or this knowledge that he was going to fail her.

"I've died in this time loop twice now," she told him softly, and he thought time stopped, just for a moment. "First time I got shot. In the restaurant. And I'm fine, now, because you fixed it. You reset the loop. And I'll be fine again. Trust me."

He looked at her, and the way her jaw set, the way her eyes burned with determination, and he knew that he had lost.

He took the sonic screwdriver from his breast pocket, placed it into her hand, and wrapped her fingers around it. She smiled gratefully, approving, and the Doctor felt the emptiness implode in his chest. She didn't understand.

He snatched her other wrist tightly, almost too tightly. He pressed her hand to his chest until he was sure she felt the double thrum of his hearts.

"Do you feel that?" he asked. "Those are yours. Yours to break, if you want."

There was a flicker of surprise in her face. She clutched the sonic screwdriver tightly, but stared at where he kept her other hand pressed to his chest.

"I love you, Rose," he said, and _oh_, did he mean it.

Her eyes widened and her breath hitched. He'd said it before, but not very often, and never without prodding or her saying it first. He let her hand drop off his chest. The distant sound of footsteps replaced the beating of his hearts in his ears.

Rose looked at the screwdriver in her hand and back up at him. "I…I love you, too," she said softly, and pressed the screwdriver back in his hand.

He stared at the tool in his hand, then back at her. His hearts swelled inside him with hope and fire, and for a moment he felt like he could do impossible things if it meant saving her. "Thank you," he whispered.

The Muertons' stomping grew ever closer to the door, and this time Rose heard it. Eyes shining, she swallowed. "You know what to do, yeah?"

The Doctor gave her a small smile, tucking the screwdriver back into his breast pocket. "Tell them whatever they want to hear. Don't get tortured, don't let them bring you into it. Create a time loop, which is still imposs – "

"That's what you said last time," she smiled back, "And then you did it."

The Muertons entered, aiming their guns at Rose.

"Right, right, I'm coming," the Doctor said hastily before they could say anything, untangling himself from Rose. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me who you're working for right now, eh?"

The Muertons only dragged him roughly towards the door.

"Aw, come on, be a sport!" the Doctor complained, trying to regain his footing.

Rose hugged her arms to her chest as the door slammed shut behind them, fighting every instinct to launch herself after them. He was going to be fine. Jack was going to find out who had them.

Alone in the cell, she sat down, curled her legs up to her chest, and tried not to cry.


	7. Chapter 7: If At First You Don't Succeed

Jack had only just found the coordinates when he reappeared in the restaurant.

"He said, 'Whot's that on your – '"

"The coordinates are set for just out of the atmosphere," Jack announced, "Spaceship of some kind. Rose, you okay?"

Her eyes were completely dry, but from the slump of her shoulders Jack could sense she'd been crying. "'S nothing," she murmured, "He doesn't remember now."

"Who doesn't what now?" asked the Doctor, nonplussed. "Rose, what's wrong?"

Jack watched the Muerton behind Rose move in, and quickly ordered, "Theta Sigma, this is a time loop. We're all going to be fine if you don't fight. Understand? _Don't fight_."

"I – _what_?" The Doctor's shocked indignation did not make either Rose or Jack crack a smile.

As the bag cut off his vision and access to fresh air, Jack swore when they got out of this he was going to find the person who invented chloroform and sock him in the face.

* * *

In the cell, Jack and Rose wasted no time, barely skimming over the basics that they were in a time loop, the Doctor was causing it, they had an escape plan, and yes, they were very well aware of the fact that creating a time loop should have been impossible.

"So, this spot," the Doctor tapped at the wall, "This spot there is where I told you to resonate the Bilitane?"

"Yeah."

The Doctor ruffled his hair. "Well, that's rubbish. What's wrong with this spot here?" He pressed his ear to the wall and tapped experimentally. "Ah, never mind, suppose that _is_ the best spot." He straightened. "Blimey, I really have done this before. And I don't remember a thing. Anyway, the wires…"

"The blue one electrocuted me," said Jack.

"Green one didn't work either," Rose admitted.

The Doctor hesitated. "It didn't…"

"I'm fine now," she replied, keeping her voice from wavering.

The Doctor's lips pressed together, but he returned his attention to the wall. "Jack, what shade of blue? Royal blue, light blue, more of a cerulean?"

"Er…light blue."

"Like the Earth sky?"

"Like your eyes." The words came out of Jack's mouth before he realised he'd thought them.

The Doctor stared at Jack a moment. "My eyes are brown."

He shrugged. "Last you." He decided not to mention that someday they would be green.

"Right, well…" The Doctor took out the screwdriver and handed it to Jack. "Setting – "

"458-B," Rose and Jack chorused together.

"Don't do that," the Doctor huffed. "Alright, bilitane for prison walls and green and light blue as danger colours, who uses that colour coding system?"

"Light blue's supposed to be locks in Galactic Standard," Jack pointed out.

"So they're not running on Galactic Standard…." The Doctor's hair was now so ruffled it stood nearly straight up. Suddenly he froze. "They're running on Sontaran standard."

"Sontarans?" Jack repeated. Words echoed through his mind, from his school days. "Those war-hungry potato midgets?"

This earned a grin from the Doctor. "I like that. Bit too accurate. Although why hire Muertons?"

"Potatoes?" Rose wondered. "Are they related to those lettuce-looking things with tentacles?"

"Rutans? Yeah. Been at war with them for ages. Millennia." He rubbed a hand down his jaw. "We've got to get you out of here."

"Yeah, but captured by potatoes?" said Rose. "Doesn't sound too bad."

"Sontarans are one of the most blood-thirsty races in the universe," the Doctor explained, running his hands along the rest of the room frantically. "And I think they want to cheat."

"Cheat at what?" asked Jack.

"Time," he snapped, "I'm a Time Lord. I know the histories of thousands, millions of races. And that includes the Sontarans. I know every battle the Sontarans ever fought, covering all of history. I know how they won, and how they lost."

Rose bit her lip. "So they want you…."

"To tell them how they lost battles they haven't fought yet so they can change history." He gave up his search and rubbed at his face. "It's Sarah and Harry and the Daleks all over again, and _I hate repeats_."

Jack choked, and the Doctor whirled on him angrily. "You know what I meant!" He took a deep breath. "Right, then. Light blue's deadly, green's deadly, but if they're running on Sontaran standard the purple one should open the door just fine. But don't touch it. Sonic it. Setting 22."

"Setting 22," Jack repeated obediently.

"And then both of you, get out of here. Run. There must be a teleport somewhere on board – "

"There is," said Jack, "But we're not leaving you here."

The Doctor looked from him to Rose desperately. "Look, it's impossible for me to make a time loop by myself, I mean, really, properly impossible, so if I don't manage it I want both of you off this ship."

"Funny, isn't it," Rose said exasperatedly, "How every time you've claimed it's impossible and yet you've managed to do it every single time. We're coming to get you, Doctor."

The Doctor's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Alright fine, just – fine. Just _get yourselves out of here_, and please, _please_ don't let them catch you."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't planning on it."

Only the Doctor tensed when he could hear the Muertons nearing. He looked from Rose to Jack, resigned. "Well, this is it. I'll buy you some time."

"You mean let them torture you?" Rose glared. "Don't you even think about it."

"It'll be easier to save you if you're not a bloody pulp," Jack added.

As usual, the Muertons thundered through the door, but the Doctor paid them no heed, still focusing on his friends. "Alright, I won't. But please be careful."

"Take the Time Lord."

The Doctor whirled. "Yes, hello, big fellas – "

The Muertons swarmed over him and dragged him out. The door slammed behind them with a resounding clang.

Immediately Jack began resonating in earnest, Rose pacing impatiently behind him.

* * *

Half an hour later as Jack sonicked the purple wire, the door popped ajar with a click. Unwilling to exhale, Jack pulled the door open and stepped outside their cell into a white stretch of hallway that curved off in either direction.

"Left or right?" Rose asked him as she followed him out.

Before he could answer, three Muertons rounded the corner on their right. A second passed in which both groups stared at each other. Then Jack yelled, "Run!" and shoved Rose off down the left passageway.

The Muertons fired, blasts just missing them as they dashed down the hall. They slid around corners, barely managing to stay ahead of their pursuers. Jack's chest heaved and heart pounded, but there was exhilaration as well as terror; finally, it felt like old times. If they could just find the Doctor…

They rounded a corner and nearly stopped in their tracks, staring at the blue box parked in a large glass enclosure like a castle in an empty fish tank.

"They've got the TARDIS?" Rose exclaimed between breaths.

Jack yanked her forward as the Rorines behind them fired again. "No time, keep going!"

They darted down a side passageway with the Muertons on their heels.

"How're we supposed to find him?" Rose cried, ducking her head just as a blast zoomed by.

"There!" As they rounded another corner, Jack spotted a stairwell and yanked Rose down with him into it, crouching near the wall. The Muertons ran straight past them.

As soon as they'd passed, Jack started to pull Rose back up, but stopped before leaving the safety of the stairwell. The Muertons had obviously realised they'd lost them, because they were now doubling back. Soon they would reach the stairwell.

"Split up," Jack suggested when he had regained enough breath to speak. "You head for the TARDIS; I'll draw them off and meet you there."

Rose shook her head. "I should draw them off. Have you noticed they're not really firing at you? It's all at me."

Jack paused for a moment. She was right – almost all of the fire had been aimed at her, not him. But he couldn't dwell on that at the moment, not with scarce cover and the possibility the Muertons might notice them at any moment.

"I'm expendable; you're not. See you in a sec." He flashed her a quick grin, then dashed out of the stairwell before she could protest, calling at the Muertons. "Hey!"

The Muertons chased after him immediately. They fired, but Jack distantly noted all blasts were aimed at his legs. He didn't have time to think much more than that; they ran nearly as fast as he did. Ignoring the stitch stabbing into his side, Jack almost wondered if he was starting to show his age.

Hallways flew by as Jack ran in what he hoped was a roundabout way back to where they'd seen the TARDIS. Blast after blast rang in his ears, and one grazed his calf, but he managed to escape both injury and the rampaging Muertons. Still, Jack realised he was nearing his breaking point. His legs were ready to give out, his heart was about to explode from his chest, and the stitch in his side roared its protest.

Just when he was sure he could go no further, Jack spotted the TARDIS, and pushed just a bit harder off the ground with each step. He felt along the glass wall frantically until he found a section that opened and barreled through it. The key was already in his hand; he slammed it into the door and tumbled inside the console room, kicking the door shut behind him.

He lay there for awhile, sprawled on the floor, unable to do much more than struggle for breath. Eventually though, he managed to prop himself up, wipe the sweat off his face with his sleeve, and realise what was missing.

Rose was not in the TARDIS.

Groaning, he got to his feet. "Rose?" he called, but no one answered.

He cursed. Rose should have been here. He'd taken a much longer route to make sure she'd have enough time to reach it. The fact that she wasn't here was a very, very bad sign.

He reached for the door handle, determined to track both her and the Doctor down, but stopped before he could open the door. Instead he moved to the console and brought up the outer view screen. The glass case the TARDIS was parked inside was surrounded by the armed Muertons who had been chasing him. With a pang, he realised that if Rose found her way back to the TARDIS now, she'd be unable to get inside.

Furious with himself, Jack pushed what he vaguely remembered being the buttons to bring up the scanner he wanted. If nothing else, maybe he could find the Doctor. He studied the flashing screen intently. The Gallifreyan symbols were as foreign to him as ever, but he recognised the waving lines as a sign that the scanner was searching. In the meantime, he reached for the rarely-used TARDIS telephone on a neglected corner of the console panel. Maybe he could get a hold of Rose and warn her about the Muertons surrounding the TARDIS.

It rang a few times before someone picked up. Clutching the phone to his ear, Jack kept one eye on the scanner screen. "Rose?"

His heart sank as he heard a garbled sounds, as if the speaker was not next to the telephone. He jammed the phone harder next to his ear, straining to pick out words.

"What is the meaning of this device?" came a harsh voice. "Why did it stop?"

"Rose?" Jack tried again.

"It's just a communication device." He picked out the faint but familiar tone of the Doctor's voice. "Absolutely harmless, out of range, no threat whatsoever…"

"It made a noise," insisted the first voice, who Jack realised must be a Sontaran.

"Jack!" Rose shrieked. A torrent of words flooded Jack's ear as both Rose and the Sontaran yelled over each other.

"Third hallway from the stairwell – "

"The female will be silent!"

"They don't know his face!"

"SILENCE!"

"They want him to – "

Jack recognised the zing of a blast, and Rose's voice cut off. His hand felt glued to the phone as he listened in horror to sounds of a scuffle and a single, faraway cry. "Rose! ROSE! No, please!"

Jack's hands shook, and the phone tumbled from his fingers. He did not pick it back up.

He sunk to the TARDIS floor, head in his hands as absolute hopelessness set in. Was he doomed to an eternity of reliving his failure over and over? Attacking in the restaurant resulted in either the Doctor or Rose dying. Staying in the cell resulted in Rose being threatened, if not killed. _Escaping_ the cell resulted in Rose dying. And in every situation, the Doctor was forced to tell the Sontarans something horrible.

The scanner beeped, and Jack looked at it despairingly. He had the Doctor's location now. Three hallways down from where he and Rose had crouched in the stairwell, just like Rose had said. Just like what she'd died to tell him.

He doubted the Doctor wanted to be saved. If Rose was dead, he was probably doing anything possible to reset the time loop and bring her back. No doubt the Doctor would manage it – as Rose had said, he'd managed to do it every other time…

But when time reset, Rose would have forgotten everything. She was too close to the epicenter. Jack would have to solve this on his own.

Solve it _how_? Nothing he'd tried had worked. He still didn't know anything.

Alright, that wasn't true. He knew they'd been taken by Sontarans. He knew they were on a ship hovering over Warren Delta Three. He knew that the TARDIS was onboard. He knew how to escape the cell, that Muertons were standing guard just outside the cell, and where the Doctor had been taken. What he didn't know was how he was supposed to get Rose and the Doctor to safety.

Suppose next time, he escaped the cell with Rose, ran straight for the TARDIS? He could draw the patrol's fire while Rose got inside the TARDIS, and then…Well, he'd be dead, followed by alive and helpless. He still might not be able to save the Doctor. And even if he could persuade Rose to leave him, he doubted she'd stay in the TARDIS.

Getting them all back to the TARDIS would be so much easier if the Doctor didn't have to leave the cell in the first place. He needed them all in one place to save them.

Unbidden, Rose's dying words echoed in his mind. _Third hallway from the stairwell_…but that's not all she'd said, was it? _They don't know his face_.

_They don't know his face_.

Jack sat up as something clicked. The Doctor changed his face. He was effectively a shape-shifter, and Jack knew from experience shape-shifters were hard to track down. How had the Muertons identified him? Jack strained to remember.

But the Muertons had never actually identified him, had they? The first couple of loops, Rose and Jack had tried to protect him and given him away. And it would have been pretty obvious that the exploding glowing guy was the Doctor. They'd hurt both Jack and the Doctor when Rose had died, until the Doctor had revealed himself. And then…well the Doctor had basically walked up and introduced himself, hadn't he? Even in the restaurant, when they'd first arrived, it wasn't until the Doctor had introduced himself that Urzen approached them.

Rose had figured it out. They'd shot at her and not Jack because the Muertons weren't sure whether he or the Doctor was the Time Lord the Sontarans wanted. The Sontarans probably wanted the Doctor alive, so the Muertons had kept Jack alive just in case they'd gotten the wrong person.

Jack grimly returned the phone to its cradle. He felt the hollow emptiness of the TARDIS, and thought he heard echoes of the Doctor's babbling and Rose's laughter.

He knew what to do. This time, he was going to get them back.

* * *

**A/N: Two more chapters left.**


	8. Chapter 8: Try Try Again

"He said, 'Whot's that on your head, mate?' And Rose – "

Jack spoke over Rose's oblivious laughter. "Theta Sigma. We're stuck in a time loop. We're about to be attacked by Muertons, but we'll all be okay as long as you don't fight."

At the mention of his old Academy nickname, the Doctor's grin dropped to gape at Jack. "What did you say?"

"Time loop, Muertons, _do not fight_," Jack emphasized. "If you fight, Rose will die." Not strictly true in all circumstances, but he didn't have Rose to back him up, and as much as he hated this technique, he knew it worked on the Doctor.

"What?" said Rose, still holding back giggles, "Jack?"

The Doctor's eyes darted around the room, and widened when he spotted the Muertons. Jack reached over and put a hand on the Doctor's arm to stop him. "I'm not kidding, Doc. Don't fight. Breathe it in."

Rose's laughter had fully faded now into the first traces of fear. "Doctor, what's he talking about?"

The Doctor's jaw snapped shut, and he wordlessly looked from Jack to Rose in terror.

Jack closed his eyes to avoid the sight of seeing his friends bagged yet again. Soon he felt the smothering bag over his own head. Stifling his own instincts to fight, he inhaled deeply. Rose's shrieks rang in his ears as he passed into oblivion.

* * *

Jack woke in the cell with his usual headache. Ignoring it, he sat up quickly and surveyed his friends. The Doctor was awake, frantically pressing two fingers to Rose's throat. Jack watched the tension in his shoulders slowly relax as he found her pulse.

"She'll be up in a couple seconds, don't worry."

The Doctor whirled to face him. "How do you know the name Theta Sigma?"

"I told you, time loop. You told me it's your old school nickname."

"That's – "

"Impossible," Jack finished. "You'd remember. You're a Time Lord, and if time were repeating you'd know right off. Well, we are."

Rose stirred, and the Doctor propped her into a sitting position with his arm. "Hello."

"Hello," she responded, straightening. "What's going on?"

"Good morning, honey," Jack said in a tone bordering on cheeriness. "Long story short, both of you. We're in a time loop, which means we are repeating this capture over and over again. Turns out the Doctor's making it happen and erasing everyone's memory but mine. We've been captured by Sontarans, and at this moment we're on their spaceship. In approximately four and a half minutes, the Muertons are going to return, looking for the Doctor. We're going to give them me. Questions, anyone?"

"What do you mean, I'm making a time loop?" the Doctor asked indignantly. "That's absolutely im – "

"—Possible, because that would require more Time Lords and there aren't any more. You would know if there were, and there aren't. I know, Doc, you've said the same thing every time. All I know is it's happened…" Jack counted. "Nine times. This is the ninth time, I think. It's hard to keep track."

The Doctor gaped at him, utterly speechless.

"But what do these Muertons even want with us?" Rose asked, appalled. "Did we do something on Warren Delta Three?"

"Yeah, that was a trap. The restaurant owner turned us into the Muertons, who were hired by Sontarans to capture the Doctor." He turned to the Doctor. "You think they want you to tell them about future Sontaran battles."

"They what?" The Doctor said in a low voice. "And _I_ think this?"

"Yeah," said Jack, straining to remember, "You said it was like something with Daleks and people called Sarah and Harry."

The Doctor went absolutely pale.

"Sarah Jane?" Rose wondered. The Doctor didn't answer her. He looked like he'd seen the ghost of a Dalek.

"Still doubtful it's a time loop?" Jack asked. He saw the answer on the Time Lord's face, and didn't wait for him to say it. "The walls of this lovely cell are made of bilitane, which you could resonate in half an hour using setting 458-B on the sonic screwdriver. Should you do that, you'll be faced with a bunch of wires. Sonicing the purple one with setting 22 will open the door, but there are three Muertons on patrol outside, with guns. Even then, you don't have half an hour. There's only four-ish more minutes now until the Muertons come."

The Doctor strode to the wall and licked it, then turned to Jack with wide eyes. "Bilitane."

"Yeah. Believe me now?"

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "I think…yeah. Possibly. I mean it's still impossible, but…"

"You said we've only got four minutes until those Muerton things come back and take the Doctor?" Rose asked in alarm.

"Yeah, but we're going to give them me," said Jack confidently. "See, the Muertons don't know what the Doctor looks like."

"And your brilliant idea is to pretend you're me?" the Doctor demanded, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Yeah."

"And exactly how do you plan on managing that?"

"Easy. When the Muertons come back, I step forward and say, 'Hello, I'm the Doctor.' Then you two can yell, 'No, please, don't take him,' stuff like that. Feel free to fawn over me."

"Fawn over you?" Rose scoffed. "Are you sure this isn't some twisted fantasy of yours, Jack?"

"I've got a much more twisted imagination, trust me."

"What, you mean like, 'please don't take the brilliant, stunning Time Lord?'" the Doctor suggested.

"Aw, Doc, I didn't know you cared."

"I was talking about _me_. And are you sure that's going to work?"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Positive. That's how they knew to take you before."

"What, I walked up and just introduced myself?" Rose and Jack both stared at him until he let out a sigh. "Alright, then. Maybe that was a bit thick."

"A bit," Jack agreed.

The Doctor's wounded look morphed to a scowl. "And what exactly did you plan on doing after that? If they want battle strategies, they're not going to get them from you, because you don't know any. But they'll think you do and torture Rose and I until you make up something convincing."

"No, because I'll stall them somehow while you two escape the cell and find the TARDIS."

"The TARDIS is onboard?" Rose asked hopefully.

"Yeah." Jack remembered that time was running out and spoke faster, "It's in that general direction from here," he pointed, "But I can't tell you the exact hallway. I took a roundabout way to get there last time. TARDIS is in this big glass case, but one of the panels opens up. Watch for the Muertons by the cell – three of them, just to the right outside the door – and there may be more running around somewhere."

"How are we supposed to get past them?" the Doctor wondered.

Jack shook his head. "I don't know. But it's the best shot we got. Once you're inside, you can pick me up and then we'll all be out of here. It's not too far from the TARDIS."

The Doctor rubbed a hand down his face, still looking hesitant. Footsteps pounded from outside the door as he murmured, "Time loop. You said Rose…"

"It's not going to happen this time," Jack said with as much confidence as he could fake.

Rose bit her lip. "Are you going to be alright?"

Jack didn't know the answer, so he plastered on his most charming smile and lied. "Of course I am."

The Muertons crashed in as usual, filling the door with their bodies and weapons. The Doctor tensed, nudging Rose behind him.

"Take the Time Lord."

"Alright, I'm coming," said Jack loudly, stepping in front of the Doctor and Rose. "Just don't hurt either of them."

"Please, don't take him," Rose pleaded as the Muertons took hold of Jack's arms, actual fear detectable in her voice.

"You really don't need to do this," the Doctor said quietly, and Jack wasn't sure if he was talking to him or the Muertons.

Jack managed to not trip over his own feet as he was dragged more than led out the cell door. The slam behind him sounded just as ominous on this side of the door.

They took the left hall, eventually passing the stairwell where Jack and Rose had once hidden. Jack struggled half-heartedly, but the Muertons' grip held. He was not particularly surprised.

They reached the third hallway from the stairwell, and Jack's mind spewed different techniques memorised long ago on resisting and prolonging interrogation.

The Muertons opened the largest, most imposing door in the hallway, and threw Jack inside. Caught off guard – he'd expected to be taken in, not thrown – he stumbled and landed on his knees. This door slammed shut behind him as well. Groaning, Jack got to his feet and stared at the thing in the center of the chamber.

An enormous machine gleamed at him, its six curved sides swooping up to form a pillar. Wires and glowy bits that reminded him eerily of TARDIS console sprawled haphazardly out of the machine.

Surrounding it were squat figures carrying large laser rifles, all of which were aimed at him. One moved towards Jack and around him, nudging him closer to the machine with its rifle.

The only Sontaran carrying a smaller blaster instead stepped forward. "Doctor," he gave the tiniest nod of acknowledgement, "I am General Staal the Undefeated of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet."

"Pleased to meet you," Jack said coolly. "There a reason I'm here?"

"Sontarans have long been denied entrance to the greatest war in all of time."

"And what war's that?"

Staal's face screwed up in fury as if he were being mocked. "The Time War! The war that raged across the universe! The war that we were not permitted to fight! I will not let this injustice stand, and nor will my superiors!" He waved a hand towards the massive machine. "We have obtained the Gallifreyan technology required to create the lock which prevents us from joining in the fight. This device has locked the Time War. You will use it to unlock the war. And then the Sontarans shall join in the glory, and conquer!"

"You think you can beat the Daleks _and_ the Time Lords?" Jack asked incredulously. "I got news for you, pal: you clearly haven't seen either of them in action."

"Silence!" Staal commanded. "You will break the lock and allow us entrance to the Time War."

"And if I don't?" Jack demanded, horribly aware of the Sontaran blasters aimed at him.

"Then you will be tortured until you are willing."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that."

And with that, the Sontaran guarding him used its gun to shove him towards the Gallifreyan machine.

Jack stared at the metal, the wild tangle of wires, and the assortment of pulsing, glowing things that was so much like the TARDIS console. But despite the fair level of knowledge he possessed about the TARDIS and machinery in general, this was out of his league. Way, way, out of his league. He felt like a toddler told to build a hydrogen bomb.

A pile of tools he vaguely recognised lay at his feet. Tentatively he reached for what looked like a spanner and loosened one of the bolts. The piece fell out into his palm, and he tensed, expecting an explosion or for something to collapse, but nothing moved.

He stared at the bolt in his hand. It looked somewhat familiar, almost like a spare part he'd once used for his sonic blaster. Could he fashion some sort of weapon?

He jumped slightly as a Sontaran fired at the floor directly behind him. "Work!" Staal ordered, "Or I will harm a prisoner. The weak one first."

That meant Rose, Jack guessed. From what he remembered reading about in his academy days, the Sontarans were fairly chauvinistic. He absorbed himself in the task of looking busy, plucking up various tools and tweaking with the machine. Each screw he loosened and tightened, every wire he crossed, every joint he pried apart terrified him. He had no idea what this machinery was capable of. This machine was, he assumed, how the Doctor had been creating the time loop. For all he knew, he might accidentally trigger the collapse of time itself. Twice he burned himself when parts he touched sparked and fizzled. The Sontarans prepared to fire at him each time, but Jack put on his best convincing smile.

"Don't worry," he said confidently, imagining what the Doctor would say, "It's just a reversal of the quantum-mechanic polarity flow reacting a bit poorly with the magnocyclic time stream. They're very fussy. Nothing to worry about."

The Sontarans grudgingly accepted his technobabble and let him recommence his careful handling of the temporal minefield. Staal began impatiently pacing behind him, but Jack could feel the general's beady little eyes watching him. He knew he couldn't keep this up, that sooner or later they were going to realise he wasn't building a path to their precious war. He just needed to buy the Doctor and Rose half an hour.

Jack knew his sense of time was nowhere near the accuracy of the Doctor's, but soon he was pretty sure thirty minutes had passed. He was just contemplating how best to escape himself when the door opened and a Muerton entered. Jack froze, a heavy spanner clutched in his hand.

"Keep working!" Staal barked. Reluctantly, Jack returned to his unscrewing, ears straining to hear what the Muerton murmured to the Sontaran. He only managed to catch some of the words.

"The two prisoners…escaped…caught them."

Jack's stomach plummeted.

"What? How did they escape?"

"Hole in the wall…locking system…heading for the Time Lord's ship…."

Staal's face screwed up in fury. "Kill them."

Jack whirled, holding the spanner aloft like a weapon. "No!"

The other Sontaran guards snapped to attention, blasters making ominous clicking sounds.

"Kill the male," Staal said loudly to the Muerton before turning to Jack, "If you finish the machine, we will spare the female."

Jack's grip tightened on the spanner. "Bad news, pal. I'm not the Doctor – he is."

"What?" Staal growled, face screwing up in anger once again. "Time Lord trickery!"

"Name's Captain Jack Harkness. Human."

"Commander Kaagh, scan him!" Staal ordered.

One of the Sontaran guards aimed his wristband at Jack. "Human!"

"Kill him, then!" Staal roared, "And bring me the _real_ Time Lord!"

Not a second later Jack felt the three blasts punch into his chest and the all-too-familiar embrace of death's arms.

* * *

**A/N: One more chapter left.**


	9. Chapter 9: Spare Body Parts

**A/N: And here we are, the end of the line. Thanks again to everyone who reviewed. And if you haven't, it's not too late. =)**

* * *

When he awoke, Jack cut off his own gasp and resisted the urge to open his eyes, taking a mental tally of his surroundings instead. He was lying on a hard floor on his back, arms and legs sprawled haphazardly. He slowly flexed the fingers of his right hand. He was still holding the spanner. Perfect.

Keeping his breathing barely perceptible and his eyes closed, Jack recognised the nearby Doctor's babbling.

"I'm telling you, you're making a mistake! You didn't see the destruction! If I open that time lock, your entire army – your entire _species_ – would be wiped out in seconds. Maybe minutes, if you're lucky and the Daleks are having a bad day. And then the real destruction would start. Never mind the damage the Daleks would inflict on the universe – you don't know what the Time Lords were like at the end of war – "

General Staal interrupted him, and Jack nearly tensed at how near the Sontaran was. "If the Time Lords are anything like you, cowering behind a human to escape your fate, they will hardly be a challenge to the great Sontaran fleet!"

"I can't do it," the Doctor declared, "I _won't_."

"Then the female will die."

Jack forced himself to stay still as he heard Rose wince. He dared to crack his eyes open just slightly, and caught the barest glimpse of Rose. She was on her knees with her hands behind her back. Two of the three Sontaran guards had their laser rifles centimetres from her head.

"Doctor, don't," Rose pleaded. Her words were nearly drowned out by the increasing hum of the laser rifles powering up.

"Alright, alright, _stop it_!" the Doctor snapped, stepping forward.

The hum died down. "Work!" Staal barked. "Unlock the Time War!"

Rose's voice rang through the chamber. "Don't, you _can't_!"

"The female will be silent!" The Sontarans' laser rifles started to power up again.

"No!" the Doctor cried, waving his hands in agitation. "Stop, I'll do it. Just stop."

The laser rifles quieted once more.

Jack could almost hear the wheels turning in the Doctor's head. "Right, one unlocked Time War coming right up. Don't hurt her."

Jack cracked his eyes open to see the Doctor looking straight back at him, eyes filled with sorrow, though this vanished when he saw Jack was awake. The Time Lord gave him the tiniest of nods, and then turned to the machine. Jack shut his eyes tightly again. He heard small bangs as the Doctor rummaged through the pile of tools and began working.

Eventually, Jack slowly dared another peek, this time at Rose. She was staring at him, and her eyes widened when she saw his eyelids slowly crack open. Jack winked at her, then shut his eyes again, resuming his dead corpse act.

He remained painfully motionless for several more minutes with nothing to entertain him but the clinks of metal on metal as the Doctor worked. When the Doctor finally spoke, Jack let the familiar voice wash over him.

"So I've been wondering," the Doctor said conversationally, "Where you found this lovely specimen of broken Gallifreyan technology."

"Silence!"

"Yes, yes, or you'll torture me and kill my friends – or rather my remaining friend, you've already killed Jack – I know the drill." Jack heard a the machine emit a faint hiss and another clink come from Doctor as he picked up another tool. "But you see, my brain's too big. Needs a bit more stimulation to think. I need _noise_. And since I doubt you're willing to enlist your guards over there to sing a quartet with Rose, I've decided to just stick to running my own gob. Or, if you like, you could talk back to me. Conversation. Brilliant for getting the ol' synapses going. Might help me work faster."

"We discovered the lock in the ruins of Arcadia," Staal admitted.

"Ah, Arcadia," the Doctor muttered darkly, "I was there, you know, right there, at the front line….But what's one more war story to you?"

"Keep working!" Staal barked.

"Yes, yes," the Doctor said, snapping from his reverie, "I'm working. No need to shout. I have enough people to shout at me, thank you very much..."

"Keep working!"

"I KNOW!" the Doctor yelled back, snapping something into place. "But you know what I don't know? Why you've resorted to hiring Muertons to do your dirty work. Not very brave, is it?"

"Sontarans do not lack bravery!" Staal shot back.

"No, no, I suppose not. It's _numbers_ you're short on, isn't it?" Jack could hear the Doctor's smug grin. "Oh, I'm right, aren't I? I like it when I do that. 'Cause this ship's not the average warship, is it? Looks more like a stasis ship to me. Your whole army's in stasis; just a couple of you awake to run the ship. Why's that, then?"

"The new army rests in preparation for the Time War!"

"Oh, yes, yes. New clones, brand new batch of Sontaran warriors, might not even be finished developing yet. First day on the job for the new clones, a good night's sleep is very important...or so I've heard. I suppose it's easier, too, for a Muerton to take two humans and a Time Lord than it would be for a Sontaran. Three very _tall_ humanoids…"

"You will be silent," Staal ordered tersely. "Or the human female will be killed."

The Doctor did not say anything else for a long time.

Without the Doctor's babbling, Jack was almost beginning to drift off. The only thing keeping him awake was the terrible, gut-wrenching urge to scratch his nose and the sheer terror that one of the Sontarans would notice he was still alive. Another quick peek confirmed that the Sontaran guards, at least, seemed completely focused on hiding their expressions of boredom from their commander.

On the other hand, Staal had begun to pace again, his steps quick and agitated. Jack listened to Staal's feet, calculating the timing of each step and the distance from his body to Staal's path.

A couple times when Staal's pacing made him face away from Jack, he chanced another peek at Rose. She was watching Staal pacing, brow creased in worry. Through it all, the Doctor worked on in silence.

"How complete is your work?" The general demanded suddenly, nearly startling Jack into moving.

"Oh, am I allowed to talk now?" The Doctor said in surprise.

"How complete is your work?" Staal asked again, anger building.

"Complete?" the Doctor repeated as if puzzled. Through the open slit of his eyelids, Jack could see the Doctor rubbing his head. "About…half-way maybe?"

"Work faster," Staal ordered. "I grow impatient."

"Oh, I doubt that. Don't grow much at all, do you?"

Staal practically growled.

"Sorry, was that rude?" the Doctor wondered. "My fault, sorry."

"Worker faster, or the human will – "

"Yes, _I know_," the Doctor said louder. "Believe me, I am very, _very_ much aware of all the nasty guns near her head. More to the point, do you know what would be extremely useful right about now, besides a sonic screwdriver?"

Jack's body, which had been lying agonizingly still for who knew how long, tingled with anticipation. He peeked his eyes open again and fully opened them when he saw all attention was focused solely on the Doctor. He gripped the discarded spanner tightly in his fist.

The Doctor's eyebrows waggled as his mouth formed the words, "A spanner."

In one fluid movement, Jack leapt off the ground and toward Staal, swinging the heavy spanner straight into the probic vent at the back of the general's neck. Staal dropped instantly. Before his body had even fully collapsed, Jack snatched the general's blaster and aimed it towards the Sontarans surrounding Rose.

The guards swerved their rifles' aim from Rose to Jack, and Rose rolled in a backwards somersault away from them.

"Hold your fire!" the Doctor barked, and the guns swiveled to him instead. He held a remote with a pulsing red button above his head, thumb poised to press it. "I've got a bomb!"

"You have no bomb," scoffed one of the Sontarans.

"Don't I?" said the Doctor, eyes wide in mock bewilderment, "I wonder what it is I've been working on for all this time then?"

Rose managed to scoot herself over to Jack, who helped her up without budging his aim from the Sontaran guards. One of the Sontarans kept his gun trained on Jack; the other two were reserved for the Doctor.

"Sontarans are not afraid of death," boasted Kaagh.

"I'm offering you a choice," the Doctor said darkly, his hand tightening over the button, "I don't know how big this ship is, but there must be thousands of Sontarans onboard, not to mention there's the ship itself. I can set this bomb off and destroy them all. Or, you can transport my friends and I back to where your Muertons found us. Just leave. Leave now and never come back and live to fight another day. What do you say?"

"Never!"

The Doctor hesitated. "You're picking death, then?"

"Death before cowardice!" confirmed one of the other Sontarans. "And your friends will be the first."

Jack nudged Rose behind him with his elbow, keeping the gun leveled at the nearest Sontaran.

"You're going to doom them all?" the Doctor asked desperately, "Destroy your entire ship?"

"Better than to die a coward," Kaagh shot back, "And you have no bomb."

The Doctor's grip on the remote tightened. "I am giving you a chance to leave."

"Take aim." The Sontarans aiming at the Doctor switched their aim to Jack and Rose. Jack's finger touched the trigger, ready to fire.

The Doctor's shoulders slumped. "Then I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." His thumb came down on the button.

Jack felt Rose flinch next to him, and he braced himself for the explosion…

Nothing happened.

The Sontarans all laughed. "Such unwarranted arrogance! There is no bomb!"

The Doctor shrugged joylessly, hands in his pockets as he wandered over to where Jack and Rose stood. "Of course there is," the Doctor said lightly. "It's on a delay." Then he snatched Rose by the arm – her hands were still bound behind her back – and pushed Jack towards the door. "RUN!"

Jack ran backwards, throwing wild shots behind him to keep the Sontarans from firing or following too closely, before fully turning and running as fast as he could after the Doctor and Rose.

As soon as he was through the door, the Doctor pulled it shut quickly and sonic-ed it. Then he pointed the screwdriver at Rose's cuffs. "You both alright?" he asked frantically.

"Never better," answered Jack, eyes darting around for potential attackers.

"Brilliant," Rose said shakily as her cuffs snapped off.

The Doctor gripped her freed hand and squeezed it. "Good, because there's a bit more running ahead."

They dashed through the halls of the doomed ship as if monsters were on their heels, and soon enough there were. Muertons emerged from behind a corner, guns primed, which forced the three to take an adjacent hallway.

"Which way to the TARDIS?" Rose gasped, legs pumping even quicker to keep up with the Doctor.

"Right!" Jack directed, pointing the gun wildly behind him and letting off a few shots to deter the Muertons. The Doctor did not tell him off for his use of weaponry, which was, Jack supposed, because everyone on the ship would be dead soon anyway.

Soon, the blessed blue box was within sight. "Come on," the Doctor urged, yanking Rose forward, "Come on, come on, _come on_…"

Jack wrenched the glass panel open and all three of them burst through the TARDIS doors and tumbled inside. Ducking to avoid a blast that nearly took off his head, the Doctor kicked the door shut and jumped over the heap of limbs that was Jack and Rose to the console.

Quickly Jack disentangled himself from Rose and helped her to her feet, trying not to grin idiotically at the sight of the Doctor at the TARDIS controls, no matter how frantic the Time Lord was.

All three of them were alive and well in the TARDIS. He'd done it.

The TARDIS landed with a slight bump, and the Doctor let his hands drop to his side. With a tired, grim silence, he strode past both his friends and out the TARDIS doors. Rose and Jack followed out behind him.

They were back on Warren Delta Three, Jack realised as he saw the light of the moons reflect off the restaurant's windows. The Doctor stared up at the dark sky, and both Rose and Jack squinted to see what he was staring at.

With a resounding boom, fireworks erupted in the sky, spilling brilliant ribbons of orange and crimson. A crowd of Warrenites poured out of buildings, all pointing and staring at the show. Some of the younger Warrenites laughed in glee at the display, unaware of its bloody origin.

"That's the ship, isn't it?" Rose asked quietly, pulling her gaze away to look at the Doctor.

The Doctor watched the ship explode with stony eyes. "Yeah," he said flatly.

Rose's lips tightened into a sad smile. She reached over to take his hand and squeezed it. "We're alive, though, yeah? Not too bad."

The Doctor turned from the exploding sky and gave the tiniest glimmer of a grin. "Not too bad."

Jack watched the fireball as it expanded, slowly fading. He clapped a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "Got a teleport to dismantle."

The Doctor tore his gaze away from Rose. "Yes! Teleport. Lead the way, Captain."

* * *

One dismantled teleport later, Rose and Jack lounged on the captain's chair while the Doctor meandered around the console, absent-mindedly flicking switches.

"So…you saved us again," Rose said with a smile, "Now what?"

The Doctor looked up from the controls. "No, _Jack_ did." He nodded sincerely at Jack. "Thank you."

"Hey, no problem," Jack said with a grin, casually stretching and bringing his arm down around Rose's shoulders. She raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't protest.

"No really, you were brilliant," the Doctor said warmly.

Jack gave a half-shrug, but inside he basked in the glowing praise. "You're the one who kept giving me another shot to get it right."

"That machine's how you did it, wasn't it?" asked Rose, "That time lock thing?"

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets. "Must have been. I definitely could have made a short-range memory suppression bubble out of that, but as for the time loop….You have to understand, forcing time to loop back on itself is complicated. Immensely complicated. And to do it without the Eye of Harmony…that sort of thing's never been done before, not even by Time Lords."

"So, what, you invented a method for creating a time loop, by yourself, not once but several times?"

The Doctor rubbed his hand down his face. "Apparently. Mind you, I've no idea how I did it…That time lock…" His lips turned down slightly as he concentrated. "Maybe if I rerouted the paradox inhibitor conduit…" He looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah, that'd just blow the whole thing up, wouldn't it?" He pumped the bicycle pump absent-mindedly.

Rose grinned. "Whatever it was, it was amazing."

"Doubt I could do it again."

"Bet you could."

Jack whistled. "And still. It'd take a genius to figure something like that out."

The Doctor yanked down a lever and leaned back against the console, arms folded in front of his chest and a smirk across his face. "Yep." He cocked an eyebrow at Rose. "Impressed?"

Rose stuck her tongue out the corner of her lips. "Maybe a bit. Could do with a bit more impressing."

Accepting the challenge, the Doctor attacked the console controls in a dizzying frenzy. "Something impressive coming right up then!"

"Phroditamite," Rose called.

The Doctor whirled to face her, eyes incredulously wide. "What? But Rose, the _music_ – "

Rose snuggled into Jack's side, much to the captain's delight. "Think Jack deserves it, don't you?"

The Doctor pouted at him, but Jack just grinned and wrapped his arm tighter around Rose. His voice reached an unthinkable falsetto as he sang, "_Her clavicle's quite angular, wish I could disentangle her, Oh sweet dream, won't you –_ "

"Alright, alright!" the Doctor shuddered, pulling some more levers.

Rose and Jack high-fived with a whoop.

"You can show me your dance moves," Rose called, and the Doctor smirked, shaking his hips in a circle in response as he reached for another lever.

"You can do better than that!" Jack crowed.

The Doctor yanked the lever down and the ship jolted, throwing both his friends to the floor. Utterly unruffled, he reached out a hand and swooped Rose off the floor in one fluid motion, leaving Jack to scramble to his feet.

Grimacing, the Doctor pushed the door open. Hot pink lights washed over the three immediately as a pulsing beat made their very bones rattle. The humidity of an entire dancing planet's sweat soaked their clothes almost immediately.

"Come on, then!" Rose yelled, voice indiscernible over the pounding music as she yanked the Doctor out the door. Jack grinned as he shut the door behind him and followed.

* * *

Hours later, the Doctor stumbled inside the TARDIS, Rose and Jack on each side supporting him. A goofy grin decorated the Time Lord's face.

"_The bare necessities of life will come to you!_" the Doctor sang happily. "Like bananas!"

"Like in those banana floats, you mean?" Rose rolled her eyes and glared at Jack. "That _you_ said weren't alcoholic!"

"I didn't think they were, or I wouldn't have convinced him to drink so many!" Jack protested as they heaved the Doctor onto the captain's chair and sat on each side. "How many of those did he have, anyway?"

"Oh, are we back on the TARDIS?" the Doctor said delightedly before bursting into song again. "_Wherever I wander, _w_herever I roam, I couldn't be fonder of my big home…_No, sorry, that's 'The Jungle Book,' isn't it?"

"I don't think he had that many," Rose said with fond exasperation.

"Disney!" the Doctor interrupted brightly. "Walter Elias Disney! Good ol' Walt! Brilliant chap, left me his head to keep on the TARDIS….still haven't dropped it off at the cryogenic reviving station on Vesper Four…" He rolled his head to face Rose. "Want to go meet him?"

Rose's nose wrinkled. "You want to meet a man whose cryogenically frozen head is on your TARDIS?"

"No, I want _you _to meet him. I already did. How else would I have gotten his head?" the Doctor said reasonably. He beamed. "His head can make friends with my hand!"

"Any other spare body parts floating around I should know about?" Jack asked, trying not to laugh.

"There's an ear floating around here somewhere…" the Doctor said thoughtfully. "Forgotten whose that was…not Van Gogh, haven't met him yet…want to go meet him? No, Disney!" He lurched off the chair, reaching for the TARDIS controls with all the coordination of a bat in daylight.

Rose gently took his hands off the controls as the TARDIS entered the vortex. "Don't think you should be driving drunk. Mum'd kill you."

"What?" the Doctor said indignantly as he and Rose both landed back on the chair. "Me, driving drunk? Never. Time Lords don't get drunk."

"Bet Time Lords don't get hangovers, either," Jack said cheerfully.

"They don't!" the Doctor insisted.

"Oh, I dunno." Rose smiled and squeezed the Doctor's hand. "There was that time on Florana…"

"And Fiesta 95," Jack added.

"That planet with the polka-dotted sky…"

"King Henry the Eighth's birthday party…." Jack stopped, and looked down at his shoulder. The one that the Doctor was now leaning against, soundly asleep.

"Did he just fall asleep on me?" Jack asked in disbelief.

Rose used her free hand to poke the Doctor's shoulder. The Time Lord didn't even stir. "Yep."

Jack grinned evilly, but Rose didn't notice. Yawning, she snuggled into the Doctor's side. Jack propped his elbow up on the back of the chair so he could lean his head against his hand. Within minutes, Rose was asleep too, curled up against the Doctor with her fingers loosely intertwined with his. Jack watched the steady rise and fall of their chests for awhile, then yawned and let his own eyes close.

Soon there would be danger to dive into, worlds to explore, people to meet, music to dance to, adventures to live. But for now, there was only blissful dreaming as the TARDIS drifted through the endless universe waiting for them.


End file.
